looks like rendering adblockers extensions obsolete with manifest-v3 was not enough so now they try to implement DRM into the browser giving the ability to any website to refuse traffic to you if you don't run a complaint browser ( cough...firefox )
here is an article in hacker news since i'm sure they can explain this to you better than i.
and also some github docs
You're not wrong but i don't think this has anything to do with being free. If companies want to track you, they will (except for those whosr business model is privacy maybe). Regardless of how much you pay them.