It is obvious they are doing #2 (pun intended). At least weeding out those who don’t make purchases. “Only 10% will reach T4” sound familiar?
I have thought about #1. You can easily think this way with the way things are going. You get called a conspiracy theorist by a few dozen random internet people for even mentioning it.
The typical large corporation mindset is milk it for all it is worth as fast as possible then move on to the next gimmick. So, it’s really not a stretch to have this idea. They don’t care about the product just convincing you to buy it. After that? What?