I recently re-installed The Crew 2 because I wanted to start a new character and start the story again from scratch. Unfortunately I'd forgotten that YOU CAN'T START AGAIN (Jackie Chan Confused Meme). Because of these ridiculous shenanigans of theirs your progress is inextricably tied to your online account. They have literally built a system that limits replayability. Bravo.
Even people who bought it physically!?
Well, it relies on servers to play it on, so I'm pretty sure that yes, even people who bought it physically will be locked out.
It requires a connection to the servers to play the single player.
So yes, even people who bought a physical version lose the ability to play the game.
Tl;dr: DRM sucks, buying does not imply owning.
It's hard to feel sympathy for people giving money to companies like Ubisoft, Epic and EA. It's not like them being assholes that constantly screw over their customers is a new thing.