As we enter the third week of trial, we're learning a lot more about the landscape of social (and not-so-social) media. We also go deep into the cloud with AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Youtube and Tiktok have few creators and a billion viewers of their videos. Its an entertainment app.
On Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat just about everyone creates something (text, pics) and shares with friends and family. Its a social app.
Extending their monopoly illegally:
Just because Meta's Facebook and Instagram extended their monopoly into Tiktok's business does not mean Tiktok is competing with Facebook and Instagram. Instead it means Meta is abusing its monopoly power in social to bully its way into short video apps. Meta is doing the same when it extends Facebook and Instagram into Marketplace selling, Dating, Chatbots, etc...
Not only is Tiktok not a competitor of Meta but Meta should be barred from using its monopoly power to extend into other markets.
Would we allow Facebook to buy Instagram and Whatsapp?
The answer is NO.
How did it happen? Has that been covered by this trial?
This is what I remember:
Instagram started as an app feeding pictures into Facebook from your phone; Facebook did not have a mobile app.
Instagram then added features to stylizing those pictures.
Then Instagram realized they could directly link the users of Instagram and they had their own social network and didn't need Facebook; they were now a competitor.
They grew really fast and freaked out Facebook leading to the buyout.
When the regulators came to evaluate the buyout they didn't know what Instagram was.
Facebook told them it was an app that fed pictures into Facebook and the purchase was a vertical buyout.
Facebook did not alert the regulators that Instagram was a fast growing competitor social network already with 40m users and that the buyout was a horizontal one.
The regulators not knowing anything about apps went for the mischaracterization and let Facebook close the deal fast.
I think the explanation was at a higher level of abstraction around "workout content" - in some broad sense a Reel of a workout by an instructor on Instagram competes with looking at a route on Strava. We're hearing a lot of that from Meta's questioning, that apps compete against each other for time and attention. Meta is getting more into the space by acquiring Within, a VR fitness company. The FTC lost its bid to block that merger, and Meta was represented by the same lawyer in that preliminary injunction hearing who represents it here--Mark Hansen of Kellogg Hansen.
It's too soon to say where the bill will end up given the potentially inconsistent language. A markup is coming this week.
Youtube and Tiktok have few creators and a billion viewers of their videos. Its an entertainment app.
On Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat just about everyone creates something (text, pics) and shares with friends and family. Its a social app.
Extending their monopoly illegally:
Just because Meta's Facebook and Instagram extended their monopoly into Tiktok's business does not mean Tiktok is competing with Facebook and Instagram. Instead it means Meta is abusing its monopoly power in social to bully its way into short video apps. Meta is doing the same when it extends Facebook and Instagram into Marketplace selling, Dating, Chatbots, etc...
Not only is Tiktok not a competitor of Meta but Meta should be barred from using its monopoly power to extend into other markets.
Extending a monopoly is illegal.
Imagine we are back in 2012.
Would we allow Facebook to buy Instagram and Whatsapp?
The answer is NO.
How did it happen? Has that been covered by this trial?
This is what I remember:
Instagram started as an app feeding pictures into Facebook from your phone; Facebook did not have a mobile app.
Instagram then added features to stylizing those pictures.
Then Instagram realized they could directly link the users of Instagram and they had their own social network and didn't need Facebook; they were now a competitor.
They grew really fast and freaked out Facebook leading to the buyout.
When the regulators came to evaluate the buyout they didn't know what Instagram was.
Facebook told them it was an app that fed pictures into Facebook and the purchase was a vertical buyout.
Facebook did not alert the regulators that Instagram was a fast growing competitor social network already with 40m users and that the buyout was a horizontal one.
The regulators not knowing anything about apps went for the mischaracterization and let Facebook close the deal fast.
What is the point of allowing the case to proceed for so long if the potential is for Bondi to kill the litigation?
A minor note, but how does Strava compete with FB, Instagram in the sport/activity content/tracking space?
I think the explanation was at a higher level of abstraction around "workout content" - in some broad sense a Reel of a workout by an instructor on Instagram competes with looking at a route on Strava. We're hearing a lot of that from Meta's questioning, that apps compete against each other for time and attention. Meta is getting more into the space by acquiring Within, a VR fitness company. The FTC lost its bid to block that merger, and Meta was represented by the same lawyer in that preliminary injunction hearing who represents it here--Mark Hansen of Kellogg Hansen.
It's too soon to say where the bill will end up given the potentially inconsistent language. A markup is coming this week.
Thank you for the explanation, though I remain skeptical that serious athletes who use Strava would find a FB VR app an acceptable alternative.
The 'time and attention' argument, as you've noted so often, is a relatively weak one.