They never made an announcement about anything, just introduced higher prices to UK subscribers without any warning. Then, when people woke up to what was going on, it seemed that they had instituted a range of subscription prices across the EU, actually breaking EU law IIRC. When sports tech journalists called them on it and asked for a statement, they studiously ignored them and released a statement via the Strava club on their app. I follow that guy DC Rainmaker, who was probably the main sports tech journalist on the story, and I was interested, so I remember following it quite closely at the time. You can get a correct timeline and version of events if you go over his old posts on the whole saga.

The annual payment was not discounted. For me it increased by $20 IIRC, from $60 to $80, but the impact was greater for monthly subscribers. For me, it was a $20 annual increase, really not much money and I had always thought the founders were decent guys and deserved to have a profitable business. I'd heard their story and thought it was a good one, but that unnecessary bumbling, either by the founders or middle management, really made me rethink my opinion of them. I think they brought on a third guy around that time? Maybe to help get things back on track?