Yes, its a way for Blizz to keep you logged longer.
For some reason they went soft on it during Legion, to test the waters and in BFA went balls deep.
You know what? I think it worked because at the end of the day players were even more time online trying to get all this new crap and farming islands, they were complaining, not that do anything, its Blizzard after all, but players still played the game 24/7. Funny aint it?
Blizzard is following what many other game companies are doing for quite a while now, preying on player psychology, for example:
The weekly chest, dont you get all excited thinking about it? Doesnt matter how busy your day is on wensday, you will find a way to log on and open that chest.
Its gambling, its predatory, its abusive.
But they went through loop holes to be seen otherwise.
The weekly chest is an example, there are more and Blizzzard is not the only one doing this by no means.
Of note, they shifted into this system right after the huge decline of the players base (right after WOD release). They stopped releasing subcriber numbers for a reason, every subscription game does this if they are in massive decline.
Nerdslayer studios does case studies about this, feel free to check him on YouTube.
To finish this ranting, im pretty sure Blizz has been testing the waters as well to turn the game into a more “mobile gameplay” version. They are being careful about it, since westners are very diferent than asians, but MMOs in Asia are littered with cash shop crap and players devoure everything place on them.
Companies like Korean NCsoft have made billions off this.
Blizzard will be no diferent.
To FINALLY finalize, WoW will become more “mobile game” than anything, with daily/weekly chores to keep you busy or you fall behind while adding more crap at ridiculous prices (apperantly €15 for GENDER change is acceptable because, believe it not, it sells like hot cakes). Soon you will see entire sets, certainly even weapon enchants/effects.
Nothing will change, it will just get worse.
TL;DR Enjoy your Asian game.