IME this all started after MSFT acquired GitHub but well before vibe coding took the world by storm.
ETA: Tangentially, private repos became free under Microsoft ownership in 2019. If they hadn't done that, they could've extracted $4 per month from every vibe coder forever(!)
Is someone who is not really using github's free service losing something important?
As an individual, likely not. As a team or organization there are nice benefits though.