As a policy it happened some time ago, but it either never got implemented or did on an extremely limited basis.  
Today a bunch of long time members got hit with it.  It's honestly self suicide IMO, as you destroy the community (obviously a great deal won't pay for the service, and if not given an alternative option, they'll just leave, which will severely degrade conversations in the comments which I feel most members here find to be as valuable if not MORE valuable than the articles themselves.
Once the comments section dies out, even people who would have been willing to pay and subscribe will find that there is no longer a reason to.

You can't alienate half the community and expect zero repercussions in a website that is primarily driven by community discussion.

Yessir!  Seems to be fixed.  Thank you!