Yeah, I also met my wife online back when you'd lie about meeting someone online. Spent our first couple years telling people we met "through a friend of a friend".
I'm guessing this was around the time you guys met since she introduced me to StumbleUpon shortly after we started dating.
I used to work in field service for a machine tool company. One of the machine brands I serviced had a couple years in the late nineties that hated to work on. The machines were always cheap but those years were egregious. Corners cut everywhere and the original parts were so shitty we'd usually have to retrofit shit from a different year. Eventually bumped into a guy who'd worked on them at the time who explained the history. The owners of the company at the time were about to sell out to another manufacturer and they wanted to jack up the profits before the sale so they cut every corner they that they didn't think would be noticable before the sale.
The brand stayed afloat for another ten years but everyone I know who was in the industry at the time said their was never any coming back from the damage two years of shit machines did to their image.
Worst part about was, because the machines didn't start having issues until after the company sold, the new owners got all the blame and got stuck with bill for all the warranty work. Literally no incentive for anyone else to not do exactly the same as the original owners.