The thing is that when you're only a little shy of the necessary range, it doesn't take much fast charging to bridge the gap. If you'd have already had an account it would have trivial to pump a little extra confidence into the battery at a fast charger.
I signed up for all of the major charging networks that are active in my corner of the continent. It's a pain in the butt to do, but it eliminates a lot of stress and concern - just like insurance and a spare tire. I don't feel like I "have" to get my money's worth out of those - I'll be very happy if I never have to use that spare and especially if I never have to use the insurance. In the same way I don't overly begrudge having to have a few bucks rattling around in EV charging network accounts in order to be able to use one at the drop of a hat.
But I sincerely hope that one of these days all of the chargers will accept credit card payments via reliable, tamper-proof RFID readers. The current mess reminds me of the bad old days where you had to have a different credit card for each brand of gasoline.
