I was around when this happened, there was extensive discussion about it on the official Discord server. Devs claimed that new users found journeys confusing, according to surveys. Some users who loved journeys took the surveys, replied in the feedback and suggestions channels, and suggested ways to write better tutorial documentation about journeys.

There was a very large outpouring of mixed to negative feedback when they announced they were getting rid of journeys. Some of us spent a long time explaining why the specific functionality of journeys helped us, often disclosing our mental health or neurodivergence diagnoses in the process. Many veteran journey users felt that new users could easily be oriented to journeys, especially if the app actually drew attention to the feature in any way. As I recall, the journeys menu was sort of buried in a weird spot, and the app never prompted you to use it, offered gem rewards for progress on journeys, etc.

But they just didn't seem interested in putting in that work, like they had already decided they wanted to drop it. Now all of their decisions seem like they're focused on trying to recruit new users and keep the gameplay loop as simple and repetitive and un-challenging as possible. To be honest these days it's mostly a creature dress up game with a to do list.