This is quite ludicrous. The response "the world is moving this way" may be right, but to remove a remove without notice and dispute everyone's use of the product is exactly why I don't touch Apple.
I did try , once before to get my family to get Evernote accounts, and then had real trouble with concurrent updates of a note. So they don't want to do that any more. It is a barrier to use to require everyone I want to share a note with to get an Evernote account.
I want to use Evernote to record everything I want and then, share it with people in whatever way I see fit. The security of a public note is something I can determine.
Please put this feature back in or I will move to another solution.