GeoCities is closing

Today I received a mail from Yahoo service that informs me that my GeoCites site will be no longer exists.

Final notice: GeoCities is closing.
Dear Yahoo! GeoCities customer,

We're writing to remind you that Yahoo! GeoCities, our free web site building service and community, is closing on October 26, 2009.

On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files.

But I started to think, what this means, GeoCities is old service and has thousands of websites, include one of mine .It is my first personal site. When GeoCities close, the traffic currently directed to geocities sites will go to competitor’s sites.
If you are website owner, I think this means more traffic to your site. If you are owner of GeoCities website and you want to keep your site running. You have to pay for hosting and and copy your site to your own domain.

What I really don’t understand clearly, as a GeoCites web site owner, why Yahoo do this .Does this because economical crises and it want to drive more customers to its non – free hosting which cost about 4$ per month .