Unity themselves have committed to that option (if you don’t like our new future TOS, keep the old version and don’t update) in writing (that was in their deleted github repo). So it seems extremely likely that they would lose in court.
The key words in the above are ‘in court’. If you’re an indie unhappy with an x*$.20 charge, chances are a lawsuit will not improve your day.
It’s also possible that they can’t track new installs either.
FAQ:
How is Unity collecting the number of installs?
We leverage our own proprietary data model and will provide estimates of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project – this estimate will cover an invoice for all platforms.
Which is some kind of weird nebulous BS.
They’re not saying their engine phones home and/or collects data from end-user devices. With the associated data protection nightmares.
Was Unity lying yesterday or are they lying today?
Yes and yes. It’s not an either-or situation.
White-collar crimes. No mandatory minimums on any of those.