I cannot remember them telling that unlimited photo storage wasn't unlimited?

I was also burned, in my case by the "free forever" or something "high quality photo storage" (as opposed to full quality).

I understand nothing is truly free, but I expect when a large scale company offers something for free they have thought it true and aren't planning from the start to weasel out once you have uploaded a few thousand images using their solution?

Well, I have learned my lessons:

I don't trust Google anymore.

As some said it took a while to stop trusting Google because they had to burn through a mountain of goodwill, but here we are.

On the first Pixel generation it was unlimited for the lifetime of the device, from Pixel 2 onwards it was unlimited storage for 3 years, in case of Pixel 3 which launched in Oct.2018 it was unlimited until 31st January 2022.

I understand your frustration, but this was communicated by Google already at launch.

Google specifically said what benefits you get with each pixel: unlimited original with first p, from 2 to 3 or 4, unlimited original for 3 years and unlimited compressed after, for p5 just unlimited compressed. Google didn't broke any of these claims