It might feel like a failure to you but to them - and this depends on the end goal of the product - it probably isn't. They've had products in the past that th

It might feel like a failure to you but to them - and this depends on the end goal of the product - it probably isn't. They've had products in the past that they've rebranded or consolidated, for instance. Just look at what they're doing with Google Chat right now. I remember reading somewhere that different groups will develop products that overlap with each other and the one that performs the best remains alive until user interest is lost or if it's becoming a financial burden. It almost feels like a multi-armed bandit problem. I have this feeling that sometimes, some products, are just a way of collecting brand new data sets for them to play with and hopefully improve current and future distinct products. They're a very patent- and data-oriented company. Anyway, their moonshot company, X, actually encourages failure and the team who's working on a certain project is rewarded for it as long as they do it quickly IIRC; so maybe both Google and X share some similarities in that regard. If they don't share then it makes sense to kill products and avoid wasting money on something that isn't producing valueable data.