The current story they're talking about is a 30 day temporary license from point of purchase of a digital game. Supposedly after the refund window has lapsed, the license renews to a permanent license. If the temporary license expires whilst the console is offline or PSN is offline the game won't run. Supposedly it's to prevent people from buying games, taking the console offline, and refunding. In theory it should work like before after the 14 to 30 days.
My scenario is a bit different. None of my digital games will run after dusting off my PS4 and hooking it up. The Internet says it's because it's not my primary console, but I can't make it primary without updating it. That would burn a perfectly good, exploitable firmware that's currently running. I believe there is a homebrew hack for making it primary again without updating, but I'll have to look into it once it's jailbroken.
Probably referring to the ecosystem. Most game-launchers and stores on PC (except GOG) constantly do the same kind of license checks we're currently dragging Sony for before letting us launch games, we kinda just don't feel it because our PCs are online most of the time.