I think multiplayer should be free across the board. Right now Gold only gives you multiplayer, Deals with Gold, Games with Gold & Free Play Days. Xbox Live Gold was created with the 360 to differentiate it from the free Live Silver accounts. Gold gave you premium features like Party chat, Cloud Saves & access to video apps that weren't available to Silver users. So it was well worth paying for. But with the launch of the Xbox One, most of those premium features have now been included with the free accounts. If you make multiplayer free then there are only the deals, free games & free play days left. I think those should be included with Game Pass Ultimate or a similar premium tier. The cheapest subscription plan should be the standard Game Pass(consoles, mobile, or PCs) with no premium offers other than the standard 20% off if you buy the game. More expensive tiers should allow multiple libraries & then include exclusive Store deals(like Deals with Gold) or free games that you get to keep even if they leave Game Pass(like Games with Gold). Maybe they should allow you to mix & match 3 or more libraries like cable TV packages? Say you only want console, mobile & Ubisoft libraries because you don't need access to the PC or EA libraries? Or maybe you don't need the console & mobile libraries but just want the PC, EA & Ubisoft libraries? With 3 or more libraries that also opens up exclusive offers like Deals with Gold, Games with Gold, exclusive Game Pass Quests & Perks offers.
Microsoft has an opportunity to really simplify its subscriptions & make Game Pass the service to have. They just need to get rid of Gold to do it. With their latest 180°, it's a great time to make those changes. I understand the odds of them doing that are probably slim, but I think it would definitely increase their Game Pass subscriptions & that seems like that was their whole motive for increasing the Gold subscription prices anyways.
Tommy McClain