While I don't have specific details about the exact reasons for shutting down Freebase, it's important to note that Google's decision was influenced by various factors. One reason could be the need for better integration and consolidation within Google's ecosystem, as Freebase was a separate project and possibly presented scalability challenges. Another reason could be the growing popularity of Wikidata, which also offers a community-edited knowledge base and could have potentially competed with Freebase.

The main reasons for shutting down Freebase in 2016 were twofold. Firstly, Google wanted to focus their efforts on the development of the Knowledge Graph, which was considered to be a more advanced and widely used entity recognition system. Secondly, the community-driven editing model of Freebase had some limitations and challenges in terms of maintaining data quality and preventing vandalism.

It's interesting to consider the reasons behind the shutdown of Freebase. One possible reason could be the increasing dominance of structured data markup and schema.org in the SEO industry. By focusing on schema.org and the Knowledge Graph, Google could consolidate the handling of structured data across the web under a single umbrella, ensuring more reliable and consistent results for search queries. Additionally, internal resource allocation and maintenance costs may have played a role in the decision.