Eve can’t ever become free. Too much scales with number of accounts. It would require a massive investment to redo do almost every game system, and even then access to unlimited accounts likely would still break a universe simulator like Eve.
If the devs really wanted to be brave and different, the developers would have doubled down on the subscription model and actively target the admittedly small niche of players who actively detest microtransactions. But as it is, they’ve gone about as far as they can without breaking the game (and some will even argue skill extractors did just that) adding microtransactions. The game design work to keep Eve playable with really free accounts is just too great.