I was wondering about this too. I know a number of people that were eager to buy C2, some that I was hoping to work with as I still use C2, but now it does seem like the only path to go down is piracy which I do not condone, but it is literally the only way, even if people WANT to pay for it, they cannot.
It's weird, the price went up for c2 (it's considered old software, I thought it'd go down in price), then it becomes unavailable to buy. If c2 is old and becoming obsolete, why not lower the price to get people learning about event sheets and such, and then as they learn more, they'll see the benefits of all the features in C3 (timeline, new runtime) and may subscribe in future years to use these features, whilst having gained a lot of game dev experience and knowledge.
I never thought I'd end up subscribing to any software, I think subscriptions are a massive financial decision that a lot of people (especially hobbyists) may not be able to afford easily, but I did sub to C3 thanks to CC and C2 over the years- I only unsubbed due to a few criticisms with C3 that are not present in C2, so again, it's just very weird, it's not a flat "yes, C3 is better", there's genuine pros and cons to weigh up comparing C2 with C3.
C2 is still very capable, I'm getting a smooth 60fps on my project on mobile, can still export and build and everything, it does seem to be confusing to these people that were interested in buying C2, some think it's to try and entice people to subscribe to c3 (but then, people who are against subs wouldn't suddenly sub now, they are against subs usually because they do not have a stable income each month, such as hobbyists or younger teenagers looking to learn about game dev).
It's also really weird that you can legally use Construct Classic right now and export and sell stuff if you like, but you couldn't legally aquire Construct 2 and use it and sell stuff, even though it has a HUGE ecosystem of plugins, capx's, guides.
EDIT: To be fair, I mostly just pointed out things I've observed rather than be constructive, but I really don't see the point in putting thought in to asking for a suggestion such as "oh could we maybe have a 'C2 lite' where you can use the editor, but cannot export whatsoever?" or something, because, to put it bluntly from what I've gathered over the months and what people have said to me, Scirra are more interested in aiding the education sector and want to get away from c2 ASAP, I don't really think they care about the folks who wanna stick with c2 that cannot afford a monthly/yearly sub and they want to deter people away from c2, not because C2 old and obsolete (they could just offer C2 for free if it's old obsolete software, but instead they up the price of c2 and now taken it away, because C2 is still totally capable to use right now, there's legit competition between c2 and c3).