I saw an article from Stacy of IoT that said the 2nd Gen hub was going to be discarded along with several of the abilities to make/use/create smartapps. All the ST brand items have disappeared from stores like BestBuy and Walmart. The list of “works with ST” that appears on the ST website does not mention, for example, Ikea. Because they work with ST and because the buttons and bulbs are quite affordable, I have several of them both. I also have several of the ST brand buttons, 2 presence sensors, 2 or 3 motion sensors, a few door sensors. I called “The Smartest House” about an order and they have an automated message there for the upgrade/exchange/refund program of the ST hub 
. Does anyone know what the heck is going to happen here? I used to have a mixed set up with some things working with Wink and others with ST. After Wink’s bait and switch, I took everything to ST which meant I had to buy a Lutron hub, because ST will not work with the outlets without it. Now ST is doing the same thing??? What is going to happen with products they used to support, like the Ikea products (thank God I didn’t get the blinds as I wanted to!) or the ST brand that are now nowhere to be found??? I have really liked ST and was kind of frustrated when they forced out the classic app, but this is different, because it will require a boatload of money to get it to work, begging with a new hub. Is this really what is going to happen? If so, any suggestions about other systems or hubs? Money is a constraint and the things I got have been painstakingly bought little by little in sales, black Friday or second hand places like Ebay and Offerup. I would love to have a Homeseer, but it is quite expensive. However would it be worth it due to extended compatibility and stability? Again, I really like ST, but I am tired of being in a bait and switch situation, or being held hostage now 2 years on a row by my home automation hubs. Any info, solutions, suggestions or ideas will be greatly appreciated!!! 
I’m sure it all feels really crazy, but fortunately there is quite a bit of information available. There were official announcements on this for the last several months, I suspect the Stacy on IOT article that you saw is from March 1 and referred to the V1, not the V2. The V2 has not been sold for about a year, but they haven’t given a retirement date yet.
Anyway, the short answer is that, yes, several of the older versions of the hubs were retired. And separately, Samsung has decided they no longer want to be in the business of selling and supporting Smartthings branded IOT hardware. So they are entering into partnerships with other companies to offer “works as a smartthings hub“ devices and the other sensors. They will continue to offer the app and the cloud services.
The partner for North America and Europe is Aeotec. Their first offering is a clone of the smartthings V3 hub and can be purchased from multiple retailers, including Amazon and the smartest house.
You put these two things together, and Samsung decided to give owners of the retiring hub models, including the V1, whose devices were still under warranty a discount code that would be good at the smartest house for a discount on the new aeotec offering.
As I mentioned, there has been much discussion of all of this in the forum, I’m surprised you didn’t find any of those threads. Some are in the official “announcement“ section of the forum and some are in the Devices section.
Here’s The official thread on the new Aeotec partnership:
An Update Regarding our Hardware
And here’s the community thread on the retirements:
Hub retirements (2021) V1, Nvidia Link, ADT
There are a number of possible alternatives if you want to go to something else. You can find discussion of those in the following section of the forum:
And here is the official Aeotec page on the replacement devices they will be offering. Some are available now, the rest are expected in the next few months.
So start with those topics, and you should find plenty of existing conversations that address this issue.
You didn’t say which version of the hub you currently have. If it’s the V1, then, yes, you will have to get a new hub. But almost all of the existing devices that you have should still continue to work with the new Aeotec hub, particularly if you weren’t using any custom code. you won’t need to buy new versions of the existing smartthings-branded Zigbee devices, for example.
If you aren’t sure which version of the hub you now have, see the following article:
If you want to list the specific brand and model numbers of the devices that you have now, we can help you figure out whether they should work with a new aeotec hub, but again, most of them should. So you may find it’s less of an expense than you were fearing, although it may take some work to get all the devices moved over to the new hub.
Wait. What?
My bad, that should have been V1. I have corrected my post above. Apologies for the error. 
All good. I honestly thought I’d missed a piece of news somewhere. Thanks.
discount code for the v2?
Yeah, same error. 
My bad. I’ve fixed the post. Yesterday was physically a bad day for me and I just screwed up.
I dont see the v2 (200 and 250) going away anytime soon else a LOT of people will be pissed off.