they slowly killing the most pro consumer thing they had going... 

fwiw, I was still able to get all my points in one session today by waiting 5 seconds between searches like I had been doing. I guess this isn't affecting everyone (yet?).

That is a big part of the problem. Xbox fans are annoyed with the fact that Xbox no longer seems to want to compete, they keep showing that they have resigned themselves to a distant 3rd place.  It's a mentality issue, many Xbox fans don't want to be lead by people that have resigned themselves to defeat, it's difficult to support people who have a losing mentality. We know that if Xbox gives up on competing as hard as they can in hardware sales, it will only exacerbate the software issues that Xbox already faces, because when publishers and indie developers do market research on which consoles to port their games to, market share absolutely factors into that decision. Xbox fans don't want to need multiple console just to play all of the games we are interested in, and yet we've now had 2 generations in a row where many of us felt it necessary to need to own Xbox + PS or Xbox + Switch or all 3 to play all of the games we want to play. Xbox fans were used to being kings in the 360 generation, used to getting nearly every 3rd party game in existence, and understandably many of us want that back again. 

But it's more than just that, the new price of Series S in Brazil is 3600 real, equivalent to $730 USD, the chances of Series S costing twice as much to manufacture and sell in Brazil as it costs in the US is slim. I distinctly remember reading in the past that Xbox ships Xbox parts to Brazil and then assembles them locally to avoid Brazil's huge trade tariffs, which is why Xbox consoles have always cost less than PS consoles in Brazil, because Sony imports instead and pays the trade tariffs while Xbox manufactures locally to avoid those tariffs. That strategy has allowed Xbox to lead PS in sales for 3 generations in a row in Brazil, with Brazil being the only market where Xbox One outsold PS4 from what I've heard.

Even if Xbox decided to stop manufacturing locally and start importing consoles instead, Series S should not cost as much as it now costs. Sony sells PS5 digital at an MSRP of 3800 real in Brazil from what I've read, while the new Series S price is 3600 real, in terms of USD that is $730 USD vs $770 USD, a $40 USD gap between them. In the US by comparison there is typically a $100-150 USD gap between Series S and PS5 digital, much larger than the $40 gap that now separates them in Brazil. Not to mention the bad optics of suddenly increasing the price of a console by a whopping 38% in Brazil. Brazilian Xbox fans are understandably furious, and even Xbox fans outside of Brazil have plenty of reason for concern watching a move like that from the outside.

they slowly killing the most pro consumer thing they had going... 

Of all the recent L's MS has been taking, this one seems the most pointless.  Rewards was probably one of the most-popular apps on Xbox, but now they're making moves to just... remove it entirely.  

MS gotta stop giving you so much free stuff or they’ll go bankrupt.

It's okay. Xbox is going out of business by 2027 anyways 🙃

Just some simple searches and you see that a lot of their changes stim from people exploiting them using bots.  It was bound to happen and I am surprised it took MS this long to institute some changes.  Oh well, there are always people out there that making a good thing go away once they find out ways to take advantage of it.