Participante anónimo 224 not really strange, as many people (not saying the OP is one of them) ask for the soft power DTV to live (or work illegally) in Thailand without even taking any courses. It's only natural that the embassy wants to make sure the application is real.
it's ridiculous because one of the categories is remote work (the so-called digital nomads). I can work literally from anywhere, I don't yet want to live on a single place, so yes, it doesn't make sense. Most of the embassies don't have such requirement, tho.
Some specific Embassies in South East Asia (Malaysia? Vietnam?) reportedly demand you to have a lease, which is, in my opinion, ridiculous. I applied in my home country Korea and they wouldn't ask anything like that. They did wanted to see real plane tickets, tho. I also showed my hotel/Airbnb bookings for the first days. I've been so far 1 year in Thailand and I still DON'T have a lease. I change cities every here and then.