Mark Zuckerberg once suggested spinning out Instgram as a solution to its ‘cannibalization’ of Facebook

In an internal email surfaced as part of the Meta antitrust trial, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg fretted about the potential that the company’s Instagram acquisition may cannibalize Facebook. Were that to happen, it could lead to the “network collapse of the more engaging and profitable product,” a worried Zuckerberg told other Meta executives in a confidential message. Zuckerberg proposed multiple ways to prevent this cannibalization from occurring, including building more bridges between Meta’s apps to make them function as a single network (suggesting that Instagram was contributing to Facebook’s loss of cultural relevance). He also openly wondered if Facebook would be better served by spinning out Instagram as a separate business. In its trial against Meta, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is attempting to prove that the company is operating a social networking monopoly and that its acquisition of competing apps like Instagram and WhatsApp allowed it to maintain its dominant po ... Read full article.