Google has been, for at least a decade, making pretty terrible choices that squander developer and power-user goodwill (see: any thread where they announce a new product and one of the top comments will link to killedbygoogle). When you've burnt bridges with your biggest evangelists, adoption by normies slows, and your products appear to stagnate.

Unfortunately, they've been insulated from the consequences of their bad decisions by the fact the money printer (ads) keeps their company afloat and mollifies shareholders. The moment that dries up, they're in trouble.