Prestiging didn't require revives.
Long time players remember when fighting friendly gyms left your pokemon still able to fight without using a revive (of course you had to heal them). Why was this taken away?
Answers
Yep. It was supposedly a bug that pokemon knocked out while prestiging a friendly gym were left with just 1 hp, but Niantic didn't really seem to care to fix it. It was the week (possibly just a few days, IIRC) that bubblestrat was discovered and became widely known that Niantic finally got around to fixing it with a server-side update. The two events were too close together to merely be a coincidence, IMO.
Pokemon also used to come back from defending a gym with 1 hp. I think they changed both of these because otherwise people who mostly prestiged would have no use for revives. As an attacker you could also get away with not using revives if you manage to switch out before the Pokemon faint, but you'd have to be more careful with that.
Back on those days revives were almost useless, people just got rid of them and they were a more common item to get from stops.
As a result of that change revives became rarer and very needed, it was a smart change by Niantic, they wanted people to visit more stops because they were creating more partnerships, and wanted people to spin as many stops as they can (again sponsored stops played the huge role here), they did the trick, as it is happenning with the evolution items.
If you want to take your coins from gyms, either prestiging or fighting, you will need revives, and you will get 1 revive per each 12-14 pokeballs (just an estimation), that way they make sure we all keep spinning stops if we want to play the game for free and give them money thanks to sponsered stops that they won't see any other way from people that does not want to spend real money on the game.
I have seen myself many times without spinning stops on that days, not now, every single one is a chance of getting more revives/potions to keep fighting or evolution items, so I spin like double or triple than I did before.
Starbucks and Sprint are the two most common. Either you haven't been paying attention or you told the app you are younger than 18 years old.
Reportedly, when you first install the app if you input a date that marks you as being younger than 18 years old then sponsored pokestops do not show up for you.
But I don't think sponsored pokestops are directly related to the changes for revives. Even if you didn't need as many revives, you'd still need pokeballs and potions.
