This is bs. The reason for this is they're squeezing the last ad $ out of their product. If as me you also had a bunch of 100K+ accounts (and a bunch of friends with them) you would have noticed a steady decline during the last year in likes. That's the same that FB does with each of their properties. they limit reach so you have to pay.

This is the definitive RIP on IG's organic reach. Between the ineffective reach, scummy ways to track clicks and views, misleading reach numbers, a great % of FB being bots and all this, I can't consider FB anything but a scam for advertisers/creators and cigarettes for users.

To see how to operate a network correctly look at Google with Youtube. The reach is pretty much always the same (15 years later, you still can go from 0 to millions without spending a $ or any kind of boost), and you get paid for every view, based on your kind of content while users aren't sucked into dopamine loops (except from the one provided by simply watching a video).