Late reply, sorry.

Definitely not disagreeing, and I also think in various industries the reasons why this is happening can vary greatly. Generalizations aren't usually apt to describe specifics, but I believe they stem from similar factors/forces.

For games, its a question of why those AAA publishers felt they should increase monetization in that way, or could be, for example. For instance, you can also point to the growing cost of developing larger games, and the expectations that come along with those scope increases. Albeit, you, as a publisher/dev or whatever they happen to be, have a choice in whether to spend that much on any given thing. Obviously you don't need to necessarily have a gigantic budget to make a good game.

I've heard various people talk about it from the position of investors with a seemingly small appetite for risk, plowing money into large games. This was successful for a while, and still can be, but there have also been some notorious flops that weren't great. But another question that would come to mind is whether the market can even support having so many high value productions going on at once for the same market.

Then, throw in that the portion of society that has been historically growing and spending lots on games is shrinking, and possibly seeking cheaper alternatives. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems partially valid that a combo of poor bets and losses, combined with a shrinking share of the market, and even more factors I haven't touched on, are on the right path to an answer as to why we are seeing smaller/indie blow up a bit more. These factors alone, I feel, could lead to these companies feeling like they need to shift to a different monetization strategy. I also agree with not wanting to be beholden to a million different companies each deciding to give me as little as possible as far as my rights as a consumer goes.