Quote - Instead, they bought the site+domain of PPros, continued to pay the staff of it, and at the same time let 'em run the whole shebang as an independently-run entity - for three years.

I'm not privy to all the gossip and whatnot, but that strikes me as very reasonable business.  You're assuming that the valuable asset they bought was the content - I think the customer base they bought is at least as valuable.  I don't know why you think brand recognition and brand loyalty do not apply to a content vendor website, I know in my own Poser shopping habits I bought nearly exclusively from DAZ3d.com and renderosity.com.  If someone had bought renderosity.com, they would have gotten my business unless they drastically dicked with the site.  I'm sure many buyers behave the same.

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