"The Short History of the Internet is Littered with Value Destruction of Spectacular Proportions." Well, I can't disagree with that, and Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsey offers up a number of examples in his recent report The Ruinous History of "Pre-Business" Internet Deals, which I wish I could link to. But his view that:
This point-of-view illustrates a lack of imagination, in that it's way too early to tell how many ways Twitter will be able to become a profitable business. But I believe they will figure it out. Might an acquirer run it into the ground? Sure, but M&A related value destruction is not limited to the internet space. It happens in every industry, all the time.
A contrasting perspective is offered up by Jon Fine at Business Week in his column titled Twitter and (Not) Monetizing the Attention Economy:
Twitter isn't going away anytime soon.