Aside: Absolutely despise the web design. Designers from Google - if you're reading this, please explain this to me - what's particularly wrong with a static page?
Personally I would have preferred a normal page. It looks like a web designers dream but it's not usable like a normal web page.
They sell fewer phones.
This is Google. The design used is driven by data. Everything on the site is backed up by billions of page views and conversion metrics from other Google websites and websites Google has access to.
Google knows exactly what works on the web to maximize sales. They don't care if you like it. They care about what makes the most money.
I don't doubt that Google has to do everything that maximizes profit, but I seriously doubt if anyone has tried to make a static page for an experiment. The kind of design language today is an amalgamation..or rather a hodgepodge of current design trends, anti-functionalist fashion-like waves that UI aesthetic makes rounds in Designer circles and the copy-cat nature of "If Apple is doing it we should to" or "Stripe's success can be attributed to their sleek animations and design sensibilities", yet there is no validation. I am willing to bet.
I seriously doubt if they can even produce a static, simplified page that shows photos in high resolution and have tested that on real users.