One possible trigger for this fiasco is that André Arko and the Spinel Coop are working on rv, a Rust-based replacement four the Rubygems client. If it is as successful as uv has been for Python, it could disintermediate rubygems.

Joel Draper says as much (see the penultimate section of https://joel.drapper.me/p/rubygems-takeover/) although that would be more of a motivation for RubyCentral than for Shopify.