But if that wasn't sarcasm, nobody's removing "access" to this historical artefact. Python 2's source code is available as long as somebody stores it. But the resources required to keep it secure are needed elsewhere. If you simply want to preserve it, talk to an archivist. The Python community has moved on.

Python2 history I see as preserved in the cpython repo, mailing lists, etc. Python3 has enough improvements in the CPython VM to warrant upgrading at this point.

I think until about 2014 (3.4) Python 3 just wasn't really ready. Then maybe it took another two years for library and tooling support to firm up around that. In 2016 I did start a new project, but a mix of familiarity and gevent support kept me on 2.7.

Also, until recently the runtime had no real advantage over 2.7, but there have been some incremental improvements (dict shared keys and so forth) that are a win you get in Python 3 for free basically.

Working on a new project in 3.6 now and it's looking good so far.