Off-topic English question, if I may.
”all but disappeared” means it disappeared, right?
”all but disappeared” means it disappeared, right?
It’s a common way of phrasing things in articles so they aren’t accused of lying because someone found the equivalent of a single dollar bill of assets and points to that as evidence that it hasn’t “disappeared”
A lot of native speakers tend to use them inappropriately.
An interesting song if you are learning english that shows some of the common horrors people commit is Weird al "Word crimes".
“Word crimes” is a great song indeed. More than learning English, I am a Weird Al fan.
In this case, it translates well to ”nearly disappeared”. Which matches a sibling comment explanation that it means “everything happened for it to disappear except it didn’t quite disappeared yet”. But also makes sense another sibling comment explanation that it is a hedge. Like “for all purposes it actually disappeared, but let me say it nearly disappeared for those who will point out that the site and the company still technically exists”.
Mitchell is funny but I doubt he ranted about this one because it strikes me as old-timey and posh, and he tends to rant about new things ;)