Maybe the Pixel team didn't talk to the Maps team. Maybe they did and the maps team said they didn't care. Maybe everyone involved in all of these features has since left the company. With Google, who knows?
Whoa I had no idea this happened. I used to be a part of a group that would go in and add street view for places like public transit stations so people could gauge accessibility. It's such a shame that Google killed that ability...
A lot of it was updated with both OSM (imagery via Mapillary) and Google Maps.
While I love the "don't make Google stronger" stance, the goal wasn't to help Google but instead to help the people who needed the imagery. And (at the time, at least) most people planned their routes using Google Maps so it was important to meet them where they were.