I think they were afraid this tech would cannibalize their existing offerings and wanted to slow-roll things. Now they're sorta f'd.
Reality is Google's primary problem in doing demos of their newest models is the activism and views of their own employees, not the rest of the world.
We can try it, though, so it's great for publicity.
And it's not the Kodak days, Googlers fully understand that they need to disrupt themselves. And to tell you the truth many engineers there are more excited than afraid that things are happening, I think they will have the opportunity to get much more creative than before.