John Gruber:

Yahoo reportedly had an opportunity to buy Google in 2002 for $5 billion. Yahoo, under the leadership of CEO Terry Semel, declined. And that was the end of Yahoo. We all know hindsight is 20/20. There are all sorts of acquisitions that could have been made. But I would argue that acquiring Google in 2002 (if not earlier) was something Yahoo absolutely should have known they needed to do. The portal strategy had played itself out. All they were left with was their original purpose, serving as a starting page for finding what you were looking for on the web.

It’s unfortunate to see Yahoo struggling this bad. What really worries me though, is that Yahoo’s future also affects the rest of their properties, including Flickr. Marissa Mayer made a substantial effort to bring the service back to its glory days, but now it looks like she’s well on her way to getting canned as Yahoo’s CEO. Lately it seems Flickr has been doing much better, but will that be enough to survive her replacement?