I think this is a huge mistake at least as far as the office software goes. One of the key advantages to Pages.app and friends is that they are pre-installed and free on MacOS. This will just drive people to M365 and Google Docs.

Pages and other iWork apps will remain free. The premium features are for curated images and templates, and AI assisted document creation. If you don't care for those features, you will not be affected by the change.

Good thing they remain free and pre installed. As per the article.