Google dabbles in these tools, but the business case isn't really there. If anything Web Designer should have been more likely to succeed because it had a direct application — designing rich ads — that would benefit Google's primary moneymaker.
If it makes money, they will keep it. Think about it, Google is paying $300-$400k per engineer, if they have 10 people working on this that's $3-$4 mil per year plus the cost of infrastructure. If the experiment doesn't pan out after a few years, they will kill it.
It's strange to me that HN is a crowd that embraces the idea of "experiment often and toss it if it doesn't work" but then is shocked when Google does the same.
In large organizations, things are never that simple. There are about a hundred other factors that go into deciding whether a project or initiative is maintained or abandoned. Lawsuits, corporate politics, changing company direction, acquisitions and sell-offs... things rarely come down to "we're making a profit on this so let's keep it alive."
Then there's also opportunity cost. Let's say the project has a 200% profit margin: total revenue is two times total cost. That still doesn't mean it won't be abandoned, because someone might decide that those resources can be better spent on another project that has a 300% profit margin.
Basically what I'm saying is, don't count on App Maker to be a long-term project. There is literally no way to know, but lots of reasons to suspect it will be abandoned (based on Google's track record alone).
Oh wait...
It's designed to make internal tools, read the freaking description.
By the way, "read the freeking description" is against HN guidelines and a little unnecessary.
Probably they're hoping to grow their G Suite subscription base by offering some more value added services like App Maker.
It's not a bad idea. Build your apps quickly and simply using App Maker, and you are then dependent on G Suite.
However I do agree that Google has a disappointing track record when it comes to end-of-life-ing interesting products like Web Designer.
It's hard to make a business case these days that we should adopt a particular tool that magically builds web sites or marries Java to web, or other such experiments, when it might be orphaned 2-3 years from now. Even if the Goog keeps it on life support, you don't want to be using a platform that has been abandoned by a critical mass of devs -- fewer resources out there to support it, answer questions etc.
We'll take a wait-and-see stance on this one.
What's the migration path look like for App Maker if you want to leave G Suite?