It has for me. I've had several permanent Arm-VPSes running in OCI for almost 4 years, without paying a single cent. But I'm on a paid tenancy, by having provided a verified payment card, which I think is the distinction that the OP is trying to describe.

A "free tenancy" has limitations: e.g. your provisioned Free(tm) resources can suddenly be yoinked in order to satisfy an allocation from a user who's in a paid tenancy, even if that allocation also fits inside their Free(tm) envelope and ends up costing $0.00/mo. Simply put, the "paying" customers have dibs, even on free stuff.