As long as you don’t have to use it, its fine to charge money.
Look at the state of gatcha games. Yeah, sure, you technically -can- access all the content without paying, but in practice it's not going to happen in a human lifetime. It isn't that much of a stretch to picture games that are "technically" humanly possible, but so difficult that most people will resort to the AI. Remember the oldschool quarter-eaters in arcades? Same business model but with more steps. I also wouldn't put it past MS to offer "incentives" in the game store for titles with AI integration. Also see the comment upthread about enshittification.
And if you really don't understand the difference between a paid subscription service and a family member, I feel sorry for you.
The one I have is NFC. As far as I know the pet ones are slightly different electronics and/or protocols. I.e. I can read mine with my phone, but not my cat's.
I have one similar to this, did it voluntarily during my cyberpunk phase in the 2010's (I was also taking a lot of speed). It's not nearly as useful as I thought it'd be, but I'm happy to answer any questions about it.
Intentional but not planned. Not in any kind of over-arching kind of way, at least. Just multiple opportunistic power grabs driven by 'line go up' next-quarter thinking.
There's probably something to this. I haven't touched a delivery app in quite a while, but I'd find it very surprising if they didn't employ some kind of dark patterns to keep users coming back.
It'll end up more like console piracy, where you need a specialised build or custom firmware to do it.