Surely this should be why GoDaddy acquired and killed....

The mechanics are simple, and obvious. GoDaddy buys an upstart with money, kills it be starving it of resources.

Whats more interesting is why it would do such a thing. To acquire a company and kill it takes a lot of time and effort. It must have been either a great threat, or have assets worth spending money on.

This isn't an uncommon practice. However its less common in the world of startups, mainly because no one runs at a profit, they can't afford to spend valuable run time capital killing a competitor.

Autodesk and Avid are the masters of the buy and kill.