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Facebook bought Instagram for as much money as it would take to put something like 112 '69 Volkswagon Beetles into low earth orbit.

Now maybe that is an isolated incident, but I'm not so sure.

89615kg to LEO (kg converted from curb weight of 112 '69 Beetles[1]) would actually cost 1,613,076,070 dollars[2].

Not if you use a SpaceX Falcon 9.

edit: A quick search turned up a cost of less than $5,500/kg to LEO so it would only cost $492,882,500!

Pricing everything in the number of times you could rocket to space seems like "the next" Internet meme.

Great for SpaceX for achieving that, but it's really not a measuring stick for value.

Not a measuring stick for value, no. But certainly a measuring stick for "expensive as hell".

Indeed I was using SpaceX Falcon 9 numbers. Looks like I botched my math though.