However, cmon Google! You are not a sole developer lost somewhere in Spain. Get your act together and really support your own libraries for a sensible amount of time. Or hire more people to do so.
It seems to me that a major problem for Open Source in 2016 is assumption of support from the originating entity or person.
Does this base assumption not risk alienating individuals and organisations into saying, "Should I release this at all?".
Why should they hire people to support something which generates, as far as I can see, no revenue for Google?
The reason most companies release projects open source for free is that they created them to solve a problem for themselves, but want to benefit from community contributions. Google's ease of abandon suggests they are not really using this library internally.
Because it helps people use Material design. I feel this interpretation is supported by the concept of brand advertising, such as Coca Cola commercials not really having a direct effect on sales.
There is a big difference between releasing software "as-is", and saying - or making it look like - it will be supported for a long time:
> "it was previously stated that Angular 1 will be supported for a long time to come" - Zach Bjornson
Arguably, one of the main goals of Open Source is to be used. If companies that set expectations of support don't support it, then I think the future of Open Source is really doomed.
I've never had a bad support experience with google, from youtube, to gmail, to google apps for work, to some issues with my adsesnse account.
Do those saying they have no support ever try? There are "contact us" links everywhere for most services, and they are really damn responsive when i need to.