It is progress though. FTP is insecure, and worse still it breaks the security model of HTTPS (see article for more info). Plus additional code paths could be sources of bugs/exploits, particularly old/rarely updated ones.
You can justify removing anything with "less code paths." I hate that argument. Don't care about FTP being insecure either. Google's just being hostile to the open web as usual and getting the usual applause.
Moreover it's not implausible (I'd wager it's actually likely) that HP and other websites still relying on FTP will be pressured to actually fix their sites and switch to something more secure once Chrome drops support.
