> Multiple news articles lately have pointed out that Verizon makes orders of magnitude more money from running "dumb pipes" than does EVERYBODY else in the mob

> Multiple news articles lately have pointed out that Verizon makes orders of magnitude more money from running "dumb pipes" than does EVERYBODY else in the mobile advertising ecosystem put together, including the content companies. Then what is the rationale for buying one of these failing content companies, Yahoo, for $4.8b? > Google does not want to get into VZ's business because it is a capital intensive business As is cloud computing, but Google is forging ahead with GCP. This also doesn't square with your previous point that the ISP business is seriously profitable - if it was, Google would be rolling fiber out nationwide, as it has the cash to spend on capital-intensive project if it sees a high NPV in doing so. But it doesn't, so it just rolls out fiber to support select Google endeavors and keep the major carriers somewhat in check.