If they were concerned about abuse from free tiers, there's much better ways to handle it than this. It's Google we're talking about. Also, it's a lame excuse

If they were concerned about abuse from free tiers, there's much better ways to handle it than this. It's Google we're talking about. Also, it's a lame excuse because this affects paid users such as yourself who have nothing to do with the abuse. In Google's defense, a hobby project wouldn't need 750k requests a month. At that point it's more than a hobby. But, the 28k limit is low.