There really is no good justification for this decision. Perhaps unrelated but Google seems 'business tone deaf'. With every product release the first question

There really is no good justification for this decision. Perhaps unrelated but Google seems 'business tone deaf'. With every product release the first question on our minds is 'When will it get deprecated?' - and that is a legitimate question. Their support story is not that impressive. They do not seem to have the history/culture/DNA for support that MS or Amazon has. Their best customer is the browser - a customer that does not ask for support, only ads. I think they have prospered and will continue to for some time but they have to get a better non-browser customer support story. Ad revenue paved a runway so wide that potholes do not bother them. If the revenues keep coming down they will need a shift in attitude (management and developers).