I think there may be a distinction:

Walmart could fill a hole in the ground with $3 billion dollars and burn it, and not care. [A bit of an exaggeration, as that's half their annual profit]

AOL acquired Time Warner for $182 billion.

If it were Jet.com buying Wal Mart, then no you would not be alone. That it's a bricks-and-mortar behemoth buying a startup facing an uphill battle against a much larger online incumbent seems altogether more rational this time around.

There is an interesting way to look at the AOL-TW merger: AOL knew it was extremely over-valued, and that valuation wouldn't hold, so it used the very high prices to buy something which actually had value.

From that perspective, it was a highly successful move. But it might all be hindsight, just like the Honda Motorcycle case.

What similarity do you see? At the time of AOL-TW, both were profitable and it was the largest US merger ever.