I have a suspicion - based purely on speculation - the unspoken thing here is that most of these businesses had awesome products & teams but were hurting so bad

I have a suspicion - based purely on speculation - the unspoken thing here is that most of these businesses had awesome products & teams but were hurting so badly financially that they were on their last breath. I wouldn't be surprised if its more of a case of struggling but very smart startup, about to collapse, turns to facebook as a last resort liquidation move. Handing over to FB or Google and having them pay back some investors and shut down the service looks much better than sending out a solemn "we screwed up" email to all your users & stakeholders...