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by hajrice 5739 days ago
My guess is that they were a bit stressed out that they weren't really hitting jackpot at the time, especially as they are today. It was early 1999, they didn't really have that many good income sources at that moment(if I'm not mistaken, they didn't even have Adsense launched back then).

They went to these guys wanting to cash out and probably lay low for a year or two ... after which I'm sure they'd be back on their feet with something new.