I read this in an opinion piece that promotions and bonuses at Google are issued for launching things - products, face lifts, new features - not necessarily mai

I read this in an opinion piece that promotions and bonuses at Google are issued for launching things - products, face lifts, new features - not necessarily maintaining applications (maybe with the exception of search and advertising). So taking that lens it's easy to see why so many new products are launched but then fall away and are killed, because the people involved can get their money and then move on to do other things. Also explains the constant user hostile redesigns of existing products. To fix the reputation in this regard the internal reward structures would need to be changed so that building new things is the only way to get ahead.