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    Meta antitrust trial kicks off in federal court

    (www.axios.com)
    431 points c420 | 25 comments | 14 Apr 25 13:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    henryfjordan ◴[14 Apr 25 19:16 UTC] No.43685057[source]▶
    > "The FTC's lawsuit against Meta defies reality. The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others," Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said in a statement.

    Everyone knew at the time that Facebook bought Instagram because it threatened Facebook's dominance, and hindsight shows that exactly that happened. There's a huge swath of people that dropped off FB and now use Insta, but Meta owns both. It was a great move but it was absolutely anti-competitive at the time.

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    Aunche ◴[14 Apr 25 23:59 UTC] No.43687599[source]▶
    > Everyone knew at the time that Facebook bought Instagram because it threatened Facebook's dominance, and hindsight shows that exactly that happened.

    This is something that people can claim to know from hindsight. When Facebook acquired it, Instagram was a photo sharing app that had 13 employees.

    replies(11): >>43687645 #>>43688368 #>>43688421 #>>43688518 #>>43688872 #>>43690553 #>>43690974 #>>43693673 #>>43694028 #>>43695549 #>>43697113 #
    1. Larrikin ◴[15 Apr 25 02:20 UTC] No.43688421[source]▶
    If it was some insignificant photo sharing app with 13 employees why did they pay a billion dollars for it? Everyone knew when the sale closed exactly what they were doing.
    replies(3): >>43688795 #>>43691828 #>>43692518 #
    2. lbrandy ◴[15 Apr 25 03:44 UTC] No.43688795[source]▶
    It's fun to see everyone arguing about what "everyone" thought.. when... we can just... look... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840 is a fun thread from 2012.

    The top reply to the top comment has some useful quotes for the purposes of this discussion...

    > This is not going to be one of the best tech acquisitions of the next decade.

    > Instagram is a photo service in a sea of other photo services.

    > Bookmark this comment. See you in 2022.

    Heh.

    replies(6): >>43688818 #>>43689168 #>>43689238 #>>43689704 #>>43690455 #>>43690616 #
    3. Larrikin ◴[15 Apr 25 03:49 UTC] No.43688818[source]▶
    The top comment compares it to YouTube.
    replies(1): >>43689097 #
    4. spease ◴[15 Apr 25 04:55 UTC] No.43689097{3}[source]▶
    Back then Google was trying to be social. Remember Google+?

    https://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1523.html

    replies(1): >>43689222 #
    5. threatofrain ◴[15 Apr 25 05:11 UTC] No.43689168[source]▶
    Those people aren't putting in their own money. The people who did put their money into Instagram got to see behind the corporate covers, and they decided to buy anyway. It's very easy to say whether you'd invest $1B if you're not putting in any of your money.
    6. waste_monk ◴[15 Apr 25 05:25 UTC] No.43689222{4}[source]▶
    > Remember Google+?

    How about Google People? [1]

    [1] https://qntm.org/perso

    replies(1): >>43689846 #
    7. MichaelDickens ◴[15 Apr 25 05:27 UTC] No.43689238[source]▶
    I think you are being selective. I looked at the top 10 top-level comments and by my judgment:

    1. bullish 2. bullish 3. neutral 4. neutral 5. neutral 6. neutral 7. bullish 8. bearish 9. bearish 10. neutral

    Of the top top-level comments, you have to go all the way to #8 to find a bearish comment.

    Replies to the top comment are more bearish because they're directly responding to a bullish sentiment.

    replies(2): >>43692616 #>>43693789 #
    8. Finbel ◴[15 Apr 25 06:46 UTC] No.43689704[source]▶
    > "Where's the money in Instagram?" Preventing Instagram from developing into something that has a negative effect on Facebook. It's a "keep your enemies closer" move.

    - Larrys 2012

    9. davedigerati ◴[15 Apr 25 07:09 UTC] No.43689846{5}[source]▶
    how about Google Buzz?

    https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/introducing-google-b...

    replies(1): >>43695658 #
    10. pjc50 ◴[15 Apr 25 08:47 UTC] No.43690455[source]▶
    HN is notorious for this kind of thing, such as the iPod: "less space than a nomad, no wireless, lame". Due to not understanding how much consumers value simplicity.
    replies(6): >>43690560 #>>43690801 #>>43690835 #>>43692703 #>>43693311 #>>43694853 #
    11. Cthulhu_ ◴[15 Apr 25 09:05 UTC] No.43690560{3}[source]▶
    It's a recurring cognitive dissonance between cynical tech people and the actual mass market. I mean I'm cynical about most things but the ones that aren't and who get onto the hype train earn big money off of it.
    12. isaacremuant ◴[15 Apr 25 09:14 UTC] No.43690616[source]▶
    You took "everyone" literally but it's actually like "a lot/majority held the opinion/it was easy to see".

    The top comment compares it to YouTube as a great acquisition.

    13. latexr ◴[15 Apr 25 09:47 UTC] No.43690801{3}[source]▶
    Every time I see a comment accusing HN of having some specific consensual position like a hive mind, I go back and see comments both contradicting and supporting the stance. In other words, different opinions. Every single time I check, and every single time it shows the original commenter engaged in selection bias.

    This case is particularly wrong, as that iPod quote is from Slashdot. HN didn’t even exist in 2001.

    https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

    replies(1): >>43691642 #
    14. mongol ◴[15 Apr 25 09:53 UTC] No.43690835{3}[source]▶
    To be fair, the iPod comment was on Slashdot
    15. lesuorac ◴[15 Apr 25 12:16 UTC] No.43691642{4}[source]▶
    But hindsight of HN is different from hindsight of FaceBook.

    FaceBook was literally collecting data on what apps people were using on their phones and empirically saw the rise of Instagram. Of course the rise of Instagram didn't need to continue but that's why you buy all the realistic competitors so even if most of them fail you have a moat of dead companies.

    16. robertlagrant ◴[15 Apr 25 12:36 UTC] No.43691828[source]▶
    > If it was some insignificant photo sharing app with 13 employees why did they pay a billion dollars for it? Everyone knew when the sale closed exactly what they were doing.

    If everyone knew, why was the purchase allowed?

    17. mnky9800n ◴[15 Apr 25 13:37 UTC] No.43692518[source]▶
    HP bought palm for 1.2 billion dollars and then did nothing with it. Why is doing something anti competitive but doing nothing not? I’m sure there are other examples than the hp/palm situation.
    replies(1): >>43693265 #
    18. TimPC ◴[15 Apr 25 13:45 UTC] No.43692616{3}[source]▶
    On the other hand the top ten comments as a whole are 3 bullish, 5 neutral, 2 bearish which is certainly not an overwhelming sentiment in any direction. That's despite the fact that bullish comments on start-ups tend to get more votes because it's a start-up community.
    19. TimPC ◴[15 Apr 25 13:52 UTC] No.43692703{3}[source]▶
    After trying to set up wireless on my printer interface and enter a password with up and down arrows rotating through an entire set of keys, I'm fairly convinced that no wireless on the iPod was massively correct. If people were expected to set up wifi by entering a password with a rotation device adoption would be miniscule.
    20. no_wizard ◴[15 Apr 25 14:28 UTC] No.43693265[source]▶
    >HP bought palm for 1.2 billion dollars and then did nothing with it. Why is doing something anti competitive but doing nothing not?

    Not sure anyone thinks thats true at all.

    21. apercu ◴[15 Apr 25 14:31 UTC] No.43693311{3}[source]▶
    Fair, but other than browsing the web, a Blackberry was superior for communications than an iPhone back then.
    22. Aunche ◴[15 Apr 25 15:03 UTC] No.43693789{3}[source]▶
    Sure, plenty of people thought that it was a good purchase, but my point is nobody thought of it as buying out their competition. The transition into a social media platform and algorithmic content machine occurred under Facebook's direction.
    23. AdmiralAsshat ◴[15 Apr 25 16:06 UTC] No.43694853{3}[source]▶
    Dunno why the internet enjoys dunking so much on a poor anonymous poster who guessed wrong about a product that would catch on, whether that's the iPod, the iPad, Dropbox, etc.

    We don't seem to spend half as much energy taking major news outlets to task when they similarly guess wrong, unless we feel that somehow adding a question mark negates any responsibility (i.e. "The Ouya will revolutionize gaming" vs. "Will the Ouya revolutionize gaming?").

    24. DrFalkyn ◴[15 Apr 25 17:08 UTC] No.43695658{6}[source]▶
    How about Google Wave ?

    https://support.google.com/answer/1083134?hl=en

    replies(1): >>43697479 #
    25. mgiampapa ◴[15 Apr 25 19:40 UTC] No.43697479{7}[source]▶
    How about Google Orkut?

    https://support.google.com/orkut/?hl=en