My impression was that Netflix came along with up-front pay packages because taking a residual-heavy deal was not attractive back when streaming was unknown.
No mustache-twirling required, just a business model that made sense then and is no longer equitable.
The other point is that extras are getting full-body 3D scanned for a day’s pay, licensed in perpetuity. That is an existential threat to the profession; no actor could ever become a high-paid superstar if a bunch of producers own the rights to their likeness from back before they were famous. That’s the Marvel movies, not Netflix.
As you say, it seems Hollywood has a long storied history of abusing their labor pool at whatever opportunity they get. This is not something they learned from SV.