The FTC’s Meta Antitrust Implosion

Its monopoly case loses after five years of fierce online competition

WSJ editorial. 

"the FTC overreached. Its lawsuit argued that Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014) violated antitrust laws by eliminating potential competitors. This was revisionist antitrust history. The FTC had blessed those deals. At that time, Instagram and WhatsApp were startups with almost no revenue. Neither was destined to succeed as a stand-alone company."

"federal Judge James Boasberg explains how Meta worked to make Instagram and WhatsApp successful by improving their design and increasing their revenue, including while the FTC’s case was pending. “The landscape that existed only five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly,” he writes."

"Meta has been forced to evolve in response to competition, increasing smartphone usage, and a “massive leap” in AI-powered algorithms."

"To argue that Meta is a monopolist, the FTC claimed TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and X.com aren’t real competitors."

"The judge disagrees on all counts, citing evidence presented at the seven-week trial this spring"

"When YouTube suffered an outage in 2018, usage of Facebook went up, and vice versa when Meta briefly went dark in 2021."

"profits can be a result of “shrewd management, exceptional efficiency, booming demand, or risky investments that hit big.” The FTC couldn’t point to price increases as evidence of monopoly power, so it claimed Meta had degraded its apps’ quality."

"Meta’s apps have continuously improved"

"artificial intelligence and Elon Musk’s ownership of X.com are reinvigorating competition and disrupting business models."

"government is slower and less nimble at responding to such challenges than are markets and technology."