Editor’s Take: A Take on Acquisitions of All Kinds

My personal take is this: There’s no point in pining for the bygone “glory days” of the list business. All those nice, entrepreneurial companies whose brokers would call you up just to schmooze and give you the latest gossip on what used to be a cozy little industry — they’re not coming back.

Sure, it’s very sad. But it’s all part of the vicious cycle of business life in this country. I hate to sound callous, but even though the jury will be out for a while on whether infoUSA is doing this industry any good or not, this kind of megaconsolidation is going on all over. If infoUSA didn’t gobble up all these list firms, somebody else eventually would.