When they started the personal plan was paid (after first 1k blocks or so), then in 2020 they’ve lifted that restriction[0].
Evernote's killer feature was its ability to "scan" documents with a smartphone and to be able to search on those documents in the future.
Notion is just a Markdown editor.
The market is different, and Notion has always had a present limitation of how much a free account can get away with, even if it is generous. There's a pretty stark difference in saying "have the whole enchilada for free" at first and then "now we're limiting the devices you can sync to" or "now these other features you had are no longer free", vs. "your usage is always metered, and there is a generous free tier". I do imagine there is some sense in that if the free tier threshold was reduced that would cause some pain, but setting the expectation of "lunch is free, all you can eat" and then pivoting to "lunch is still mostly free but now you have to pay for desert" is going to make anyone mad that they have to pay for dessert now.