To me making it free (without a paid version being available) is almost worse than a subscription. Before the onus was on making a competitive product to match adobe, with the revenue coming from this. Now you will get what you pay for.

Merging the three products into one... Making the product free apparently will pull people from Adobe, but there is no like-for-like product, e.g. an illustrator replacement, indesign etc. It is all lumped in one product. This feels like shifting affinity to a consumer level product, rather than for professionals. Each product served a distinct audience (Photog/Photog Manip / Illustration, UI / Print Pre-press. With features unique to each. Why would a professional look to switch to a generalistic one-for-all product.

I havent used canva much, but I have seen non-design people use it a bunch, this feels like the direction its heading.