Commentary falls into two camps: straight reporting that’s somewhat hopeful (CNET and The Verge) and mild frustration (Marco Arment and Ars Technica).
Arment:
Usually, the purchased products are shut down shortly after talent acquisitions [like Google’s purchase of Sparrow], or they’re not included in the deal and are simply abandoned.
Ars:
Sparrow users have been thanked for our support and our dollars, and left behind with the rest of the office trash as Leca and his team move to their shiny new Mountain View offices… This is not the first time Google has bought and killed a product out from under users like me, and it will not be the last. It’s part of a pattern of behavior by the company in its march toward Web domination. Just go to the search engine of your choice and enter the phrase, “Google acquires kills” …
I agree with them. I paid for Sparrow on my Mac and on my iPhone, not for a finished product but to support the team that was developing it, a process that I expected would go on for years as it consistently improved.
They should refund the money that their users paid them, in full or in part, especially the users who bought their app after they had already begun negotiations with Google.