Will iCloud Drive always be required

I’m guessing this doesn’t work the other way around? That is, I’ve subscribed on iOS, and when I log into Drafts on my iMac at home, it recognizes the subscription. However, it doesn’t seem like that subscription has been carried over / linked to my Apple ID. When I log into my work Mac (without iCloud Drive) it doesn’t recognize that a subscription exists for that Apple ID.

Am I missing a step, or is this just a limitation (and I would need to switch to subscribing from the Mac rather than iOS to accomplish this)?