It’s not as black and white as you’re trying to present it by tearing this statement completely out of context. Although in my opinion it would be totally legitimate, even if it was. And you know what, Google and MS do such “jerk” moves, as you call them, all the time, and people still continue to pay for their services… https://killedbygoogle.com/
Nextcloud on the other hand, does listen to the community, and puts a lot of effort in making Nextcloud accessable, to as many people as possible, as for example here: 32-bit support (will continue) with Nextcloud 26
And let’s be honest: The project feature is probably not something that home users typically use, and there was no outcry when it was depracted, because most home users probably didn’t even notice it existed in the first place 