Maybe--very much depends on the source and destination country. Fact on the ground is lots of people have ended up choosing that as their path, optimal or not.

You can master-out in the middle of a PhD program, which is frowned upon, but it is difficult to get funding if you directly apply for a masters degree.

Perhaps the solution is to decrease the negative cultural backlash against predisposed intention of leaving with a masters despite applying for a PhD, which is currently seen as some sort of betrayal of the adviser if you are going to have your grad students do boring work. It'll be a win-win deal in that case.