I admire the generosity you're giving Google here, but even if fascism wasn't on the rise globally, I could see them doing this just for the all-important purpose of making more money. Rent-seeking by way of requiring an account (and soon after, a credit card) to access a feature that was once open and free.

Google has been killing free services for over a decade now, I have to imagine they've long decided to monetize and advertise on every possible channel and wavelength.