I can't think of a single incident where GCP actually dropped a free tier; I actually see new free tier stuff added since the last time I looked. If you can provide some excellent links to reflect your view, that I've somehow missed along the lines; it would be interesting to compare.

Until then, I maintain the Docker publicity is undeserved and if I had to guess, was brought on by podman astroturfers who have been polluting the web the past 2 years claiming how great podman is.