They continue to be incredibly generous. 2 vCPUs and 12 GB of RAM is extraordinary for no cost.
Looks like there has been some miss understanding
Which I imagine is what motivated this change.
I got this confirmed with a salesperson ~2yrs ago when I first set up my free tier on there.
I bet they want to see the test payment work it's way through the system, which given the number of midnight batch jobs that still exist in banks means waiting a day.