Syncing purchased music from PC to iPhone

This may not be a question, but it's an issue I'd like to get more awareness because I think running something this way is trash. Yesterday I received a digital music album for purchasing a vinyl album from an artist. I was excited to listen to this on my phone at work. After downloading on my personal laptop I see that iTunes no longer supports music. Figuring this same feature was available on the apple music app, I download that on my laptop and upload the album. After completing that, and unplugging my phone (no prompt to sync, I figure maybe it was built in), I go to check to see if that worked and it wasn't there. Mind you, two months ago I did this on iTunes no problem.

I got on a chat with someone from Apple who was beyond helpful and it was explained to me that I now need to pay Apple $10.99 for the rest of my life to sync any future digital copies I receive from artists from my computer to my iPhone. I do not use music streaming services, nor do I want to. I simply want to sync the music I PAID FOR from the laptop I PAID FOR to the phone that I PAID FOR. This shouldn't require a subscription. This was something you could do since the iPod was invented nearly 25 years ago. This needs to change back because the ease of syncing both (for FREE) was the reason I got rid of my android for Apple.