Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe in isolation. But combined with two other similar WP8/Google stories within the last week, both clearly driven by commercial issues, the case for this not being a technical issue either becomes stronger.
Or its a no one uses wp8 issue that applies to all of gooogle's portfolio. Google didn't keep maps of iPhone, even though that could have sold 10 million androids.
But that clearly can't be the case for the GMail and Youtube issues. Google still continues supporting the Exchange sync protocols for business users, so there's little technical benefit in disabling it for another class of users. Likewise Google is under no obligation to make a native WP8 Youtube app -- but given they've given partners API access to Youtube in the past, clearly there's no technical reason why they couldn't also open up the API for MS to use. In either case there's no plausible way the low market share of WP8 could be the explanation.
Now, of course both of these cases could have totally benign explanations. Maybe the licensing terms of ActiveSync make it undesirable for Google to support it for free users in the future. Perhaps MS and Google can't come to a reasonable agreement about Youtube API licensing terms, and the real villain of the story is MS for trying to now score cheap publicity points with it. Or maybe Google is trying its best to smother WP8 in the cradle. And you can't ignore these other data points when looking at the motivations for these petty Maps changes.