Q:

Is the Sockets API getting turned down?

The Channel API is deprecated and being turned down, which I find greatly disheartening.
The Sockets API is (and has been for the better part of a decade) in beta, with a policy stating:

This is a Beta release of the Sockets API. This API is not covered by any SLA or deprecation policy and may be subject to backward-incompatible changes.

Disturbingly, the Sockets API demo's Python version doesn't include import socket -- it merely makes use of the Channel API, hence this question:

Since the official demo of the Sockets API purely makes use of the Channel API (which is getting turned down), does this mean that the Sockets API is also getting turned down, but not being stated as such because of a lack of deprecation policy?

A:

The Socket API documentation, which was updated the 22nd of March 2017, indicates that you should use import socket now.
The demo project that your are refering to is over 4 years old.
Since it is only the old demo, that's referring to the Channel API, you can be certain that the Socket API will not the deprecated due to this.
Source: https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/python/sockets/
Also, as far as I know, the demo projects are only informative.

