> Would YouTube, Instagram, or dozens of other companies have been able to get where they are w/o the support of their acquirers? Yes if they got access to cap

> Would YouTube, Instagram, or dozens of other companies have been able to get where they are w/o the support of their acquirers? Yes if they got access to capital, which they could have gotten easily. You forget that Google bought Youtube because google video wasn't gaining traction and youtube had the "network effect". The same goes for instagram and facebook. It's all "whatif" but youtube and instagram most definitely would have been major independent players by themselves. Facebook, Netflix, Google, Amazon, etc were able to grow without being acquired. Remember that page/brin even tried to sell Google to Yahoo. Google did alright even though they weren't bought out. Youtube and Instagram had no real peers like google did ( altavista, excite, etc ) and they both were able to create the network effect before they got bought out. I think google and facebook really got lucky snapping up these companies. Not just in financial benefits but look at the cultural impact these companies have on the world.