You know, the day Stadia launched, someone very cynically set up http://stadiacountdown.com/ and it won't end up very far off from the truth. sigh
Honestly, I'm glad Google was willing to take a bet this big - they had a lot of serious infrastructure innovations to make this work that may end up paying off in other ways, and a company that's not willing to make big bets has a 0% chance of having a new bet land...
Funny, the stadiacountdown.com counter had actually been over-optimistic, by almost a full year, saying there are 414 days left (extrapolated based on [0]), but with the new announcement of a shutdown date of January 18, 2023, there are only 111 days to go. May it rest in peace.
As for whether Google should be taking bets that they might not be able to support, I'm actually very much against this. I would suggest that they pour their money into supporting independent start-ups, e.g. via GV[1], and then possibly acquiring them if things go well, rather than further tarnishing the Google brand.
Honestly, I'm glad Google was willing to take a bet this big - they had a lot of serious infrastructure innovations to make this work that may end up paying off in other ways, and a company that's not willing to make big bets has a 0% chance of having a new bet land...