I think the reasoning is less nefarious, Chrome apps never got that much love on...

benologist · on Aug 28, 2016

It's all about the Play Store. The apps being EOL'd only ever ran on desktops, and Chrome OS is sort of becoming Android for tablets/computers.

Chrome OS is actually not losing access to these apps for ~a year during which time the Play Store will continue rolling out alongside it.

What will be really interesting is when they roll out the Play Store for the rest of Chrome...