Sure, but a business that depends on this functionality would probably take "somewhat worse translation quality" over "completely dead translation capability".

Sure, but a business that depends on this functionality would probably take "somewhat worse translation quality" over "completely dead translation capability". As the startup gets funding and customers, they can focus on performing the same kind of analysis and focusing specifically on translation, instead of the buckshot approach taken by Google. I am completely confident that a startup staffed with talented people can match Google Translate's quality in a reasonable amount of development time, and in the meantime, something is better than nothing.