Is Apple forcing consumers to open an Apple Cash account in order to access their cash back from Apple Card?

It seems that I can no longer apply my cash back to the credit card balance without setting up an Apple Cash account. I've applied my cash back in the past directly to my Apple Card balance, and I never had an Apple Cash account.

Is anyone else having this issue? Chatting with Apple Card's customer service was basically useless. They said I would still see the option to use my earned cash back to pay my Apple Card balance without using the Apple Cash option but that is clearly not the case - I tried to pay on my cell phone, from the wallet, and on card.apple.com and in both cases, the option to use my cash back balance does not exist.

Nice way to force consumers to "adopt" Apple Cash... :-/