I think the biggest issue is that other organizations signal the impending death of a product long before they shut it down. You stop seeing updates or hearing

I think the biggest issue is that other organizations signal the impending death of a product long before they shut it down. You stop seeing updates or hearing them talk about the product and eventually start to consider other options, and they usually wait to actually kill it until there's almost no one left. It seems like Google actively maintains and tries to attract users right up until they announce the servers are going dark in 30 days.