Another difference is that, with GitHub's announcement, there are multiple ways to interpret it because there are different things that the modifier "unlimited"

Another difference is that, with GitHub's announcement, there are multiple ways to interpret it because there are different things that the modifier "unlimited" could apply to. It could mean: 1. Unlimited number of repos, each of which is limited (by user, as it turns out). 2. Limited number of repos, each of which is unlimited. 3. Unlimited number of unlimited repos. When there are multiple ways to interpret and you find out someone has picked one of them, it doesn't feel like they are being disingenuous. Whereas with cell data plans, there's only one thing they could reasonably mean is unlimited: the data. So they've changed what "unlimited" means. It is limited, but there aren't overage charges.