[lazyjeff]

Are you sure you recall correctly? The linked page recommends upgrading GIF to PNG, "the only reasonable alternative to paying the Unisys tax on the web is to upgrade graphics from GIF to PNG format", which makes sense because it's a lossless conversion. PNG was a new format back that, without much adoption. JPEG doesn't make sense as a substitute format for GIF, and would greatly increase the size and decrease the quality of files.

[habibur]

PNG support was broken and partial on browsers at that time. People were waiting for PNG but it wasn't ready yet.

Plus this wasn't the only page on burn GIF. This call was on thousands of sites. A viral movement from that time.