Robert Young at GigaOm asks the question: Was Facebook foolish not to sell for a rumored $1 billion to Yahoo! last year? He says that traffic and usage metrics seem to argue “no” but the failure to gain monetization traction argues “yes.”
In a year or less we’ll know what the answer to the question is. Recall the cautionary tale of Friendster (from NY Times, reg req’d), a story of greed, poor judgment and hesitation. That could well be an article written a couple years from now about Facebook.