It seems exponential because we play an MMO. The entire point is to reward people for the gear treadmill, it’s the reason why anyone has ever played this game from PvE to PvP and the one time they removed that treadmill via templates in Legion, people were crying and complaining too about the system.
No system will ever make everyone happy but the current system is the first of it’s kind where it rewards effort over time spent as in if you can identify your own mistakes, learn the meta and play within it, a 197 can reach 1.4, and with 207 can reach 1.6 and so on and so forth.
Boosters will exist like any other season, but players need to start taking accountability for their own skill level instead of blaming the system.