13 Comments
Jul 27, 2022Liked by Matt Stoller

Really excellent news, frankly. This signals to the big players that even "small" acquisitions will be scrutinized.

The idea that it will kill investment in the space is laughable. Gaming has consistently shown that if there's a demand, someone will develop the product.

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founding
Jul 28, 2022Liked by Matt Stoller

>and then bought Instagram and WhatsApp when the new computing platform turned out to be mobile

I think an interesting tidbit here is that they first bought a spyware app masquerading as a VPN. The data they harvested from Onavo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo) is what convinced them to acquire WhatsApp. When I worked for another big tech firm years later, I saw that the app was being classified as spyware by internal scanning systems all along. The raised alarms were never addressed..kind of makes you think. Anyway, it is finally banned from the app stores now.

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How long can this pleasant change in the wind last when hurricane season will surely sweep Republicans into power? The base is all-in for dismantling tech monopolies, but their representatives only care about donors. Remember ‘90s Bill Gates was a Democrat until Clinton’s justice department went after Microsoft for its bundling of IE. His loyalties turned on a dime and his contributions followed. Trump could possibly be tempted to ravage big tech for sweet revenge but McConnell certainly wouldn’t.

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VR probably doesn't have a massive future. VR headsets have been "mature" for 30 years, and they still haven't sold beyond a very small niche market. If a product has a real potential, 30 years should be enough to show it.

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founding

Great stuff as always! Matt, this is of course a totally speculative question, but do you think it’s possible part of facebook’s motivation for rebranding to meta was simple distraction? They’ve gotten so much bad press for the last few years, and I have the impression most Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the company at this point. Changing the company’s name struck me as a ridiculously simple and yet probably a little bit effective way of distracting people from their anger for a time.

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Great stuff! It's way past time someone stood up to Facebook/Meta. Go Biden and go Lina Khan!

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"The firm said that the FTC is 'sending a chilling message to anyone who wishes to innovate.' The idea that people only build companies to get acquired by a monopolist is fairly powerful, so we’ll see how much sway courts give it."

People build companies to build companies. The VCs fund companies to make money, so they require an exit strategy. Too often the investors aren't willing to take a long term view much beyond 4-5 years so the exit is to sell the company to a much bigger one. This distorts the business plan into making a product that might be a "good fit" for Google or Apple (or Meta), instead of coming up with a good product.

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"Isn’t Microsoft buying Activision more significant? (I would say yes, but it’s also a harder case.)"

@Matt, why is it harder?

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Jul 28, 2022·edited Jul 28, 2022

"Meta, unlike the other big tech giants, does not control its access to users."

@Matt, so why is the FTC going after them first? Because Google, Microsoft, and Amazon lobbyists are more effective, or because Democrats like Biden (who can veto Khan's every move) secretly blame Facebook for losing Hillary the election?

No analysis of the political under-current here?

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