As mcmaddy says, the free updates have always been available, but the process has never been as easy and straightforward as it should be. Possible, yes, but you have to be fairly tech savvy, and patient, to succeed. VW have had a couple of goes at a user friendly method, but never quite got there.
It’s obviously worth having the latest map information, but unless you know a road has changed, or just opened, you’re unlikely to notice changes. I did find with one version that it tried to take me to my daughter’s house the wrong way round York! I reverted to the old version until the next release, which got it right again. None of the roads had changed, so they must tweak the algorithms as well as the map data.