Cutting the free tier from 3 GB to 500 MB makes it useless for many people: that's 500 images at okay resolution, and lots of people like to put photos on their blogs. And 300 "visits" (page hits?) per day is almost as bad, as a runaway crawler or minor spike in interest can blow through that in no time.

I moved away from WP.com when they started putting ads on the free tier. I thought their business model was upselling some people, so monetizing the free version felt scummy. The fact that they're crippling the free version now makes me even more glad I moved away.