Just another example of enshittification, or whatever you want to call it - capitalism placing growth and greed above the health and privacy of the individual.

It works because it's manipulative and most people don't have the context to understand. Some may think they now have to sign up or they'll lose something.

"Preying on the uninformed and less tech literate" works, sure, the same way basically every other scam works, by pressuring people to do things they normally wouldn't.