Podcasts would need more than one engineer, certainly more than 0 <= x < 1.

I'm biased here, but "at a whim" seems like a bit of a stretch. I've never been particularly surprised by product cuts – they're always the products that have no real traction or look clearly unprofitable. Now maybe this one won't get the traction, but Android and Pixel certainly do, and Google has committed to very long support timelines on Pixel, something I see as a win, and that I'd hold them to account on.