I've been puzzled by this move for a long time, since they first announced it. None of their provided reasoning justifies removal of such a useful feature.
The simplest answer could be that making the cache accessible costs them money and now they're tightening their purse strings. But maybe it's something else...
For sites that manipulate search rankings by showing a non-paywalled article to Google's search bot, while serving paywalled articles to regular users, the cache acts as a paywall bypass. Perhaps Google was taking heat for this, and/or they're pre-emptively reducing their legal liabilities?
The simplest answer could be that making the cache accessible costs them money and now they're tightening their purse strings. But maybe it's something else...
For sites that manipulate search rankings by showing a non-paywalled article to Google's search bot, while serving paywalled articles to regular users, the cache acts as a paywall bypass. Perhaps Google was taking heat for this, and/or they're pre-emptively reducing their legal liabilities?
Now IA gets to take that heat instead...