Requesting? Last I heard they had patched all methods of not creating an account barring using the command line, for windows users that's pretty forceful
If you're not paying for the product, then you're the product.
(I don't believe the above quote to be absolutely true, but I'm not sure what motivation Canonical could have to lock some features of the OS behind a free account except $$$.)
No, random Internet forum users and whoever is lurking in IRC/Matrix are the support. Kind of like that 2 by 4 in my basement is supporting the entirety of my house's main beam.
Canonical already maintains security patches for paying customers so they aren't actually doing any extra work, but putting it behind a subscription gives them an option to start charging more for desktops, gives clear cost for server use, and maybe is marketing for "look at the premium work we do".
In any case, the company who makes the vaccines doesn't pay it. Ubuntu could make the argument you get the security upgrades if the government wants to pay for them
From my look at it, Ubuntu is making it clear that they guarantee support for 10 years, rather than just the standard 4 of LTS releases. And they are also guaranteeing compliance for enterprise uses, saving the paperwork load and time. This could make Ubuntu Pro attractive for enterprises and the IT department. Everyone wants to limit the paperwork checks. Us plebes, can make do with the free standard 4 years of LTS support if that's what you want.
I'm quite sure that any distro that offers enterprise solutions is doing similar things just for the money. RedHat does it for sure. But us plebes don't ever see it because we use Fedora instead.