You may be correct. I can’t see Apple risking a headline like “Thousands of iPhones hacked due to faulty APPLE SOFTWARE”. But I’ve already exported all my .pages and .numbers files to .docx and .xlsx. And removed Pages and Numbers from all my devices.
Just to make sure they stay secure. 
I read this but I still don’t really understand the situation, which I believe is what Apple wants. Among other things, the article says that the App Store ratings of Pages, Numbers, etc have taken a beating because of the confusion; it would be nice if Apple takes heed but I’m not really hopeful.
Edit: After watching the MacMost video (thanks @KirkS!) and playing around with the new versions, I finally get it. I’ve done as Gary suggested, use the new apps without using the premium features as well as keep the old apps just in case.
Apple noted all the new Numbers changes on their website which I repeated above. The only items listed beyond Creator Studio subscription:
Additional new features:
Experience a new, more fluid way to work on your spreadsheets with Liquid Glass.
Add personality to your work with new editable shapes.
So Numbers now includes Liquid Glass, and new shapes. 
Otherwise, it also says, “Creating, viewing, and editing spreadsheets as well as collaborating with others in real-time does not require a subscription.”
But isn’t Apple’s objective here to get people off the free platform? They need everyone to move onto a platform they can monetise. This means that the first version needs to be innocuous enough that users will upgrade. Later when most are on the new platform they can remove the options to turn off ads etc, at which point there is nowhere for users to go. Especially if they have many documents and Apple makes exporting cumbersome.
Personally, I shall be converting all my files to open or PDF formats until I see where Apple are steering this transition. Somehow, I cannot see Apple going through all this effort for it to remain free for long.
But isn’t Apple’s objective here to get people off the free platform?
Yes, I suspect this is the case.
they can remove the options to turn off ads etc
I don’t think ads are the issue, it’s the new Creator Studio features which, at this point, are opt-in. In any case I can’t see how it will be any more difficult to change course if/when the opt-in is removed than it is right now.
Unless they change the file format.
Numbers and Pages both have Export functions that support several other formats, so they would have to remove those as well. They could do that, of course.
I got sent a Keynote file today. Opened it in the new Keynote and was about to export it to PNG went I was told I couldn’t because it had something in it that belonged to Apple Creator Studio. Not impressed!
Apparently all those “extras” are restricted.
I wonder how long apps like Keynote and PowerPoint can survive when Google and Microsoft already have AI creating entire slide decks complete with images, etc.
This has been a question I’ve had. Can you even edit the file or is it just read only because a Creator Suite feature was used with it?
Also I think the new versions may require me to update to Tahoe? Which I don’t really want to do… I don’t like the glass look, the crappy icons, and I definitely don’t want more AI!
I’m hoping I can hold out for the next release, by which time Apple will have seen the error of their ways on at least some of these… 
I was surprised that the annual sub for Creative Studio is £155 in my region. More expensive than MS Office Family. But then I realised the cost is for audio/video creation. This will make it quite a niche product. It’s also pushing me to LibreOffice as I’m not convinced my Pages/Numbers/Keynote files won’t at some point need a sub to open. It also makes MS Office more attractive as for me with children in education and in charity work, most docs are MS Office so a family MS Office sub is cheaper and a better ROI. Will be interesting how this plays out for Pages/Numbers and Keynote. Whether long term users will move away from them because of the sub lock-in and the price of the sub.
Interesting iWork news
I don’t think that this is news. Ever since this software stopped being delivered on a disc, the iWork moniker has been slowly sidelined by Apple. The only people I’ve seen use it in the last 5??? years are apple commentators who predated the App Store who probably used the term as an easy way to reference Numbers, Pages, and Keynote.
Yeah agree to a certain point, but it feels like they made this move right after doing the freemium pull into Creators Studio, which still feels like a miss and mistake for the masses. I take this as a bit more signal that that’s the plan for those apps without them outright saying it.
Adding to this older thread: I again decided to install the new Numbers for cross-device parity, and have been using it without issue for simple home spreadsheets. I recently started ramping up use for a local small business on Apple equipment and noticed this bug: all images in a report would not print successfully. Niche issue, I know, but a bug nonetheless.
A certain report I would generate has a basic grid of part number, price, cost, etc., and a column with an image of the item. All images were of the similar size and same format. Some would not print, although they all showed on-screen. I was pulling my hair out trying to troubleshoot, as a printed version was necessary in this application, and yes I tried all the help desk level fixes (“did you try rebooting?” “Did you try deleting the images and reinstalling?” etc.) Just for fun I opened the unchanged file with the “old” Numbers and was then able to print the report with all images intact.
Yes I reported this to Apple and again, I realized this is a niche issue but it arguably shows a substantive difference in the two versions.