What I don't understand is... What's in this for Google? Why are they making such a radical, customer-hostile, partner-hostile change in direction? Strategically, this just seems all wrong to me, but there's clearly a Big Picture I'm not seeing.
Maybe the conversion of Nest's infrastructure was internally viewed as more maintenance than new project, so it didn't get much in the way of resources? Google palpably doesn't care about brand damage so that's not a consideration.