or it is that Google is locking down the ecosystem for some nefarious purpose (they're evidently not).

Most of the comments here seem to agree that they are. Some people have clearly been so brainwashed that they can't figure it out.

Yeah, that must be it. Everyone who doesn't agree with my simple world view is brainwashed. On the website that's 50% LLM glazing now.

Yeah I think I'm out of here.