Maybe they’re trying to get people to stop playing, so they can justify retiring the game? That’s what I expect to do (stop playing) when they end the perk that has Pokéstops give a gift to send friends any time we spin and have room for more gifts to send. It was a maddening hassle to chase around for a gift to send, before, and I just don’t have time to do that, anymore.
(more realistically, they will do that to induce more spinning of stops, to bolster their sales of sponsorships for sites, but it will still stink enough to drive me away.)
It’s quite amazing how they said this game would last another decade then decided to make the game as worse as possible. And they’ll probably still be proven right.