If Craiglist wasn’t “profit-agnostic” how much would Google be worth?  Think about it: The run up in Google’s revenues, profit, stock and market cap has to do not just with how profitable the business is, but also with the fact that investors view it as the best play on both the Web and the destruction of print media.

So since Craigslist has itself done a lot to suck out the value from newspapers, you have to wonder, would Google be worth as much as it is worth today if investors could buy stock in Craigslist too?

After all, Google is more of a classifieds/listings business than a traditional advertising business.  Yes, classifieds is a subset of advertising, I know that, but hopefully you know that I mean: if we were to rank Google relative to other “listings” business and Craigslist was a comparable, would it trade at such lofty multiples?

Anyway, Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster have other things to keep them busy these days.

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