transfer them over to the internal drive, and they work. Even without internet.

That might work for some games, but there’s an increasing number of games requiring you to establish some sort of connection to the internet even for single player or mostly single player games (Lego Horizon for instance).

Try to transfer one of those and load it up on a new console without an internet connection.

Sure, your “home console” might work for some games for now. But in 10-15 years when Sony is trying to sell you the PS8, they’re going to be cutting off service to the PS5. What happens when you have to take that device in for maintenance and they need to do a factory reset? You need to log in again to activate it, except now it’s a brick that might only be able to play a few games on physical media. Anything downloaded/backed up would likely require that specific account.