Counting chickens before they've been conceived

Since when has "they make money" (profit) ever justified any Internet company purchase? It seems to me that, over time, the opposite has proven true; "they lose money" is the far better justification.

Doesn't it go something like this?:

1. We should buy Company_X!
2. But they post a large net loss every quarter, and their losses are increasing?!
3. But they have a userbase of Y million customers and this number is increasing at Z%/month (along with other metrics like unique page views/month, percentage of returning purchase customers/month, or whatever statistics can be squeezed out of the customer data to make them look uber-attractive to someone)!!! Just think what will happen when all Y million of those users become _our_ customers!!!
4. ???
5. Profit!

Clemmitt (who knows there's money to be made on this new-fangled Internet but is too stupid to figure out how ;^)