It’s an old news tbh, and it’s quite regular with Google shutting down under-performing services.
Relevant links:
https://killedbygoogle.com/
Edit: Just realised it is your own blog post v/s news share.
You may like the discussion here, which I personally feel is the root cause i.e. promotions are driven by new products and not by maintaining/improving older services.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19553294