It's a move you might well have seen coming. Titan's 2015 drone crash was bad enough, but there were also reports of problems with both transmitting 5G data as well as a low budget. Also, there's the simple matter of technology: a balloon can stay relatively stationary compared to a drone aircraft, and shouldn't be as likely to fail since there are fewer parts to break.

Finances also help. Now that many former Google projects have to operate separately under the Alphabet umbrella, they're under greater pressure to turn their ambitious ideas into practical, profit-driven concepts. And that means that Alphabet is more likely to shutter initiatives that are either running into trouble or redundant, which is certainly the case here.