Why does there need to be a business case?

Its quite probable the engineer that built the layer has left (either Google altogether, or just to another team).

As its aged its started misbehaving, and nobody left is interested enough to figure how to fix it. Ultimately its easier just to ditch it than to maintain.

euthanasia rather than murder.

Sounds like a good case to ensure documenting of codebase is expected. Is bitrot a normal thing in firms such that somewhat large projects are abandoned because of poorly documented code?

> the new mega-application in Android for OS updates

Without this fragmentation would continue to be a huge issue and make Android development much less palatable than the alternatives (iOS/maybe WP). What would you have Google do instead?

Probably the same actions, but discuss openly the implications? I'm not saying they're doing something that doesn't make sense, or is immoral or something. Just the functional capacity they're giving themselves. Full control over the OS through a closed source binary implies the ability to put in any code they want--nefarious or not. What happens then when the update mechanism is cracked?

Sadly, Google+ seems to be dominating their current direction.

Recent changes in Google+'s GUI (shortening messages and centering everything) have made its information density unbearably small. I stopped using it after the GUI changes.

I agree. <sarcasm>Artist and photographers love autocenter/ crop, because it always works great.</sarcasm>

As someone who inherited an open studios site that did the auto cropping of artist images thing, the first thing I did was get rid of that. I was a minor hero.

> the new mega-application in Android for OS updates

Sorry, what are you talking about?

Probably Google Play Services

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-sl...

I see. I surely knew about this but I failed to make a connection to it. How is it bad thing?

It's aimed at fighting fragmentation that HN lament so much about by providing the core Google service in apps rather than the OS, but now people complain that more and more of google code is in binary apps rather than the open source OS.