In the end, the verification badge isn't that big of a deal.
But combined with everything else @TeamYouTube has been doing the last few months, this sure feels like part of a larger plan to pull back from the creator community and a push towards the corporate stuff.
No one has lost a badge yet at all. So whoever had a badge yesterday will have it today. Any change will only happen in a month or so, and the badge never said anything about quality - it was only verifying they were who they said they were.