Why do you assume that? AirPlay has been around for more than 10 years. You can still use a 15 year old AirPort Express with AirTunes the same exact way as when you bought it.
Except that you cannot configure it anymore unless you have an (insecure) Leopard or Snow Leopard machine on the same network [1]. Snow Leopard was released in 2009, the first generation Airport Express was sold 2004-2008 [2]. So Apple is not unwilling to axe support for a product rather quickly.
If they plan to support the latest AirPlay on the HomePod for 10 or 15 years, why not just state this? If you are not doing that, you want to keep the possibility to end support earlier.
If they plan to support the latest AirPlay on the HomePod for 10 or 15 years, why not just state this? If you are not doing that, you want to keep the possibility to end support earlier.
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201519 [2] I know that you could install the old Airport Utility unofficially for a while.