[dragonwriter]

> The premise that visible business failure harms brands is false.

Maybe, but it's a popular belief in business anyway; moreover, however true or false it is in general, I think it's pretty clear that Google, specifically, has a problem (whether rational or not) in some potential customer sectors with service/product discontinuations reflecting negatively on perception of other services/products under the Google brand, even if that is a sui generis effect rather than a reflection of a generally-applicable effect of product failure on brand image.