To me there are two eras of the Google Graveyard(tm). First, there's the we're a university research group with an ad company footing the bill era. That's the early Google era, and it was a consequence of its corporate structure. They valued new projects, market fit, profitability, and maintenance be damned.

We're in the second era. The era of the MBAs are shutting down the last remnants of openness the company ever had.