From another site:
There is speculation in the PlayStation homebrew community that the change was a way for Sony to sneak in code that will hamper modders. An online check-in is a common tactic against modded hardware, as it prevents illegally downloaded games from being played on the console unless it connects to the internet, which then begins the process of downloading and installing the latest firmware.
Inconveniencing everyone because of a sale you never had. Brilliant.
I’m happy to be progressively disinvesting from the Playstation ecosystem.
As much as they’ve created so of the greatest games ever, I don’t like what they’ve been doing lately.
I won’t sell my ps5 as it’s still great for many things that I won’t be able to do on Steam Deck/Steam Machine, but it’s getting used less and less.
And I’ll only buy physical games for this console.