Your experience isn't just true "for me", it's true statistically. A Master's degree in most STEM fields (IIRC) is an investment, and a better investment than you can find in the market if you're smart enough. A doctorate in most (all?) fields is partly a consumable - it leads to higher expected starting salaries, and even higher salaries than one would have had by spending those PhD years accumulating job experience, but not enough higher to make up for the lost income during those years.

Of course, a PhD is valuable in more ways than just income, and I don't regret mine despite some delays which make the above economics worse. But everyone should know what they're getting into.