It does seem like a poorly worded announcement. If they are sunsetting that free tier, but everyone with an active open source project really can be rubber-stam

It does seem like a poorly worded announcement. If they are sunsetting that free tier, but everyone with an active open source project really can be rubber-stamped into a sponsored tier that is better, they should have led with that in the first place. It's the job of these announcements to be crystal clear, and anticipate misunderstandings and head them off before they blow up. Even their second "sorry, we fucked up!" announcement didn't do a great job of addressing the elephant in the room, and at that point there's no excuse. People do not do close readings of press releases, you have to put a big box around the part you want us to take away.