Originally Posted by interracialtoons

I disagree.

A $5 billion purchase by Yahoo at that time was just not safe business.

There would have been no guarantee that the "brains" at google would have remained after the purchase and they would be sitting exactly where they are now with a $5 billion bill over there heads.

Yahoo's biggest mistake was to start charging for listings in it's directory.
If Yahoo had spent big money over the years to hire directory reviewers they would have a directory that would eclipse the accuracy of google.

There would be no Wikipedia...it would have been on Yahoo.

Go to Yahoo now and see if there is a link to the actual directory...I didn't see on the last time I looked.

The directory made yahoo number one and they blew it when they ran away 1000's of content contributers by trying to charge for a listing.

They were charging $600 for a stupid text link when youtube will upload and broadcast a 10 MB video for free.

They fucked up by trying to make money in the wrong direction; by getting it from their "content providers".