I tend to agree and it happens all the time. Every time a celebrity or actor lends their name to a product or service it's just as scummy. "Brands" get sold all the time and a large portion of them fail and go under.
Here in the Chicago area we have a famous place named Portillo's which was known in it's infancy for great hot dogs and italian beef sammiches. I used to drive by the original "dog hot" daily back in the day.
Dick Portillo owned Portillo's and made it wildly successful for years because of the food quality and service. It was really excellent no matter which Portillo's I went to.
Two years ago he sold it for tens of millions of dollars. Almost instantly the food quality and quantity suffered. Beef sammiches were half full of beef than they were previously and the bread for them changed. People noticed and stopped going. Now anytime I go by a Portillo's it's about half the crowd size it used to be. The line for the drive through at the one near me used to wrap around a very large parking lot from lunch time through dinner. Now? Not so much.
Point is, when brands get sold off they suffer in quality usually because they lose their mission. Drudge is as good of an example as my Portillo's story above.
My home page used to be set to Drudge. That changed around five years ago. My home page has been FR since.
Its not even the normal selling out. If he had sold to GENERICNEWS.com or even sold to CNN openly and said yeah guys I’m getting tired of this business so I want to settle down. Thats the usual type of selling out. This cloak and dagger operation where he appears to cooperate with an albeit laughable attempt to trick people is on another level of shady.
We’ve had a Portillos open in the central Indiana area.
Went there once; didn’t like the business model; or the NOISE!!
I lived much of my life in a suburb of Chicagoland. There was a Portillo’s drive-through nearby. Portillo’s Italian Beef was the best beef on french bread I ever had in my life. It was absolutely delicious. I now live in FL and no more Portillo’s to go to. Sad.
You can actually order Portillo’s sandwich kits on-line at their website for delivery throughout the U.S. but it costs an arm and a leg. If it has gone downhill, I’m sad to hear that. Portillo’s is one of the few things I miss about living up north. However, I wouldn’t trade 5,000 Portillo’s subs for where I live now, on the Gulf with lovely sea breezes, and continuously beautiful weather. However, I consider myself fortunate in having experienced the joy of an Italian Beef on french bread from Portillo’s in its heyday.