Let's look at it this way, even though Xbox Live was a paid service with no free games, discounts etc. , many still payed for it, why ?, Xbox Live was a good service, let's not beat around the bush here it's better than PSN overall. The money obviously went to towards updates to make the service even better.
I wouldn't mind if the same thing happened to PSN, except we are also getting the perks from PS+ with the deal. The problem is that PS3 owners are used to having free online play, but sometimes you have to give to get something back, in this case, a better service in the long term (hopefully) .