ronin - 11:03 am on Feb 6, 2008 (gmt 0)

Well done to everyone involved.

Can someone please explain to me, because I'm a bit dim and I don't understand how big business works - what actually changes now that AOL owns buy.at instead of [whoever owned buy.at before]?

Also, now we come to it, who did own buy.at before? The workers? Or someone else?

Also, I'll accept that it is, but why is it an achievement for the people at a company like buy.at when such a company is bought by a company like AOL? What difference does it make who owns the company if the workers don't own it? And... if the workers did own it, haven't they now lost their company in exchange for some cash?

Apologies in advance for the collossally naive questions but I only studied historical linguistics at university, not finance and economics.