Ah, I didn't spot that they no longer require counting installs. But you're right; this is probably what "the number of new people" means. And the "2.5% revenue share" variant means no hurdles for freeware. So a real improvement indeed. Thanks for the corrections!
And freeware can get rid of the Made with Unity splash screen now, so it's honestly a big step up from where we were before. I'd still rather switch to Godot, but at least I can walk away from Unity calmly instead of running away screaming.