If staff were told early it would be at the top of HN and Blind 10 minutes later. Same for if developers were told to wind down porting. In both cases, customer

If staff were told early it would be at the top of HN and Blind 10 minutes later. Same for if developers were told to wind down porting. In both cases, customers would be upset about being able to spend money on a service without being told it's circling the drain. There's no clean way of doing it without telling everyone at once and in that case, immediately shutting the store and giving a deadline in the future is the option that gives the most advance warning. I also guess there are legal complications about telling employees early. Google employees are Google investors.