Corporate rock sucks #8: Is there no end to the desire to be a part of something bigger?

This week I discovered that social networking horror MySpace is owned by the atrocious News International (which already makes my love of The Simpsons, Futurama, The X-Files etc. difficult). Not, of course that I'm anywhere near being a a fan of MySpace. The very lovely Flickr jumped when Yahoo clicked their fingers, the Decemberists happily took the money that EMI/Capitol waved temptingly in front of their noses, The Body Shop (admittedly a pretty ugly global company already but at least one with a semblance of ethical integrity) have just jumped into bed L'Oreal (who have less of that ethical integrity and are part owned by Nestle who have absolutely NO ethical integrity at all).

It seems that anything small MUST aspire to be part of something bigger - you see it all the time - I've particularly noticed it around the Internet where Yahoo (Flickr, Upcoming, Delicious, Webjay) and Google (Deja, Blogger, Picasa) and AOL (Winamp, ICQ) are snapping up any even mildly promising operation - and it seems that the owners of these independents just swoon and take the cash as if that was the aim all along.