> 2) Have Brave Rewards (their crypto-and-ads service) turned on.

There are different definitions for "free".

Free is great, free is what they advertise. However, I don't personally like Brave Rewards because I am not bullish on crypto and I don't think most of BAT goes to creators, because Brave Rewards market usage is really, really small, so it gets used speculatively. My perfect world solution is that they either

a) advertise that Brave Rewards is required ("Brave Talk is free, ad-supported), or

b) have a payment tier between premium and free that allows me to pay-per-call or something, without the premium features.

It’s not free, it just doesn't cost any money.