Having dedicated servers and separate bandwidth pipelines for Gold Xbox LIVE subscribers is a legitimate way to enhance paid customers' experience, but enhancing it by stripping down Silver members' features seems a bit awry.
According to Xbox LIVE's Major Nelson, silver members will no longer have access to Xbox LIVE free content when they are first posted. That content will be available to Gold level exclusively for one week, after which Silver members will have access to it.
"If you have a Silver account and you see a piece of content that has a red circle with a slash through it (like the 'Ryan Industries Plasmids and Gene Tonics' content) you'll have to wait until a week after the content is released to access it", said Major Nelson.
"This is not done to annoy our Silver members", he explained. "Limited time exclusive access to content is just one of the many benefits of having a Gold Xbox Live account", he added.