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Yahoo could have spent that billion creating their own. Their comment boards are very popular. Great deal though. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a big flop with major purchases like many other companies have gone through.

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And then another $billion on getting the traffic to it? Meanwhile coming across as the mean sons-of-guns who are killing Tumblr? Sometimes it can be "better" to acquire the competition than to kill them.

They could have, but why spend a year doing it and hoping people will use it? Why go through the trouble of figuring out all the things Tumblr already did while they did it?

Easier, cheaper and faster to buy it than build it.

I'm not sure it's cheaper in this case.

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