Lawsuits Filed by FTC and the State Attorneys General Are Revisionist History
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Nice framing, but the FTC's rulings aren't "law", they're regulatory decisions, and they can be revisited any time they want.
In fact, it would be downright silly for that not to be the case, as it would suggest that the government cannot go back and revisit past decisions in order to intervene and address newly identified market failures that are a product of unanticipated changes in the market.
Just because they were reviewed to be legal at the time does not mean they're legal now, also it does not mean they were right back then. I believe the FTC isn't subject to the rules against double jeopardy like the legal system.
Classical Supercharger (pre-war-chest) insertion&incentive formula was inspired by vacant parking lot presence near hubs of established social economic activity and short distance access to conventional substations (input). Now that our Type Zero civilization is considering the dangers of a compacted human settlement sprawl (energized by the protein of the similarly compacted animal farm), perhaps it may become more convenient to view a remotely located Supercharger/solar/storage site as the first building block of the minimally invasive living space template of the future (McDonalds is one of the largest real estate holders, and also sells burgers).
The input then becomes a low cost large footprint solar array atop a common city center warehouse and/or surrounding vacancy of low tax land. The modular Powerpack can scale capacity within the ample space of the Town Warehouse Space (also available to contain additional communal assets) as local residency increases.
This becomes conceptual practice space for the inevitable Starborough.
"fiercely, chilling, unquestionably" are the key words of the article.
FB at that time said they could impossibly integrate those platforms into FB. An important reason for the Eu to eventually allow the take over. Surprise, surprise, a few years later they announced the platforms are being merged into one.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-me...
This will be a crucial piece of evidence in the antitrust case, as it will show intent to violate antitrust laws.
To me, this stinks of "something must be done and this is something".
As for FB’s attempt to create an irreversible fait accompli, it’s easy enough to address: Instagram gets all the shared infrastructure and its transitive closure, and it’s Facebook’s task to replace it for itself, not the spun-off Instagram.
If we break up Insta and FB (and whatapp or the same for google), what changes? There is more competition maybe. But is that actually a good thing for the average citizen?
More competition means lower prices for ads since that's what is really being bought and sold here. But that does nothing for anyone not buying ads (99.9% of people). In fact, lower prices means more ads which worsens the experience for Web users.
Plus, with a psudo monopoly on ads, FB can and does pursue at least some social responsibility programs (banning certain ads for instance). Maybe they should do more (I think so but you might not?), but if you increase competition they will be forced to do less. So you'll see more fake news and clickbait bs. Again, that doesn't help the average citizen.
As margins fall, everyone will be forced to invest less in the actual platforms. This too seems like a worse deal for most users: sites that don't have as many functions and load slower and go down more and have more ads.
Given all these very foreseeable downsides, why would we want more competition in this market? Competition is NOT a good in and of itself. It's only good or bad based on what it produces. Cheaper flight prices are good! Flights so cheap the airplanes crash are bad. So we have the FAA to mandate standards.
Until we're ready to add something similar to social media, you need to be very careful calling for more competition blindly.
But then you have 2 more problems: Facebook 2.0 will like open shortly after, just as Facebook replaced MySpace. And you have random agencies from the US government deciding which platforms are permitted to operate with no oversight or guidance beyond whatever the next President Trump thinks favours him...
WhatsApp was very popular with users before acquisition. I'm pretty sure that's why FB bought it. Same with Instagram.
It is just as likely , though, that WhatsApp would develop these features regardless - at perhaps a slightly slower pace.
WhatsApp’s expenses were compatible with $1/user/year they were charging in some markets (and which they would likely be able to charge in most of all).
If FB didn’t fund it , someone else - perhaps the users - would have. But it was the growth (evidence for which was collected through Onavo) and implied threat that made FB buy them, not anything else.