Used to love it a few years ago. Bombcast was the first 3+ hour podcast I really got into. Before that the idea of listening to something that long, every week seemed insane to me. But that crew was so entertaining, the episode always flew by.
Gerstmann appeared on a podcast to give his thoughts on the matter. He goes in great detail about the previous times GB was sold.
His main point boils down to that GB being in the same corp as Gamespot will always be bad for GB, cause the execs will always put priority towards Gamespot as the more well known brand.
The weirdest part about these sites shutting down and the layoffs is there is never any self reflection from them or criticism towards the staff. It's always "They're so talented and deserved better" or the empty "hope they land on their feet." They can do no wrong. Maybe your site and content sucked and people weren't interested.
Turns out the shift towards activism and social justice ultimately didn't pan out to literally no one's surprise. Every gaming outlet in some capacity was going in that direction. People were calling this shit like 7+ years ago. It's bizarre to me that these outlets didn't have the foresight to see where this was all going.