Not new, been around for years https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/introducing-yahoo-finance-premium-224501914.html?guccounter=1

Yes, perhaps they moved some of the features available in free yahoo accounts to premium accounts.
I recall a few months ago I was able to download from their website historical CSV data all in my free Yahoo account. Now, attempting to download will prompt the payment screen. I started this issue when I noticed that.

I imagine eventually they will not even allow you to browse the historical data to prevent scraping altogether...