How does that make it okay? You're basically buying an external Blu-ray disc drive for the PS5. Why does it require Sony's permission to hook up and use if you've bought it? This is just another way modern companies are encroaching on our rights, it's literally online DRM for a peripheral. Imagine if you needed online activation to be able to use a new controller you buy. It'd be just as absurd as this.
a controller isn’t part of the security verification chain, and again, it’s disingenuous to compare the two because they happen at a significantly different frequency level.
The more salient comparison for “why” is look at PC games. Even if you buy a physical copy, most require you to authenticate them online.
Sony chose instead to do a one time drive authentication so you don’t need to authenticate every game online instead.
That's not true. PS5 Slims which are bundled with a disc drive still require online activation to use the disc drive. It's not just for those who bought a digital model and want to buy the disc drive later.
This puts them in the same boat as the retail Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles, which require an internet connection during first time setup.