The U.S. government accuses Meta of violating antitrust laws by purchasing rivals like Instagram and WhatsApp, moves they argue were meant to neutralize competition and strengthen Facebook’s monopoly. If the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) succeeds in court, it could force Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp—essentially breaking up the company.
As part of the trial, the FTC presented strong evidence to demonstrate that Facebook was well aware of the threat Instagram posed to its business. Internal emails revealed how Facebook closely tracked Instagram’s rapid rise and actively debated how much it would be worth to acquire the app.
Discussions also surfaced within Facebook about alternative strategies to curb Instagram’s growth—such as copying its features, launching a competing app, or buying it and purposely stalling further improvements while building Facebook’s own version.
According to government arguments, these conversations reveal a clear strategy of “buy or bury the competition.” These internal communications not only shed light on how Meta viewed its competitors but also expose the ruthless tactics it employed to become the dominant force in social networking today.
Here are some highlights from those internal messages:
Zuckerberg & Co. Were Worried About Instagram's Rapid Growth
“Instagram seems to be growing really fast. In just four months, they’ve hit 2 million users and are seeing 30,000 photo uploads per day. That’s significant. We need to watch them closely. Also, Dropbox’s next big push seems to be in photo sharing.”— Mark Zuckerberg, February 2011
“If Instagram keeps gaining traction on mobile—or if Google buys them—they could easily add features we already offer. With their growing library of user photos, that’s a real threat for us. They’re growing extremely fast—doubling every couple of months. Right now they have 5–10 million users. If we delay launching something great, those future users might never switch to us. But every two months we wait, their growth doubles, making it harder for us to catch up.”— Mark Zuckerberg, September 2011
“Our photo team is now almost entirely focused on developing a new mobile photo app to respond to Instagram. Even our own app is seeing a surge in uploads. Watching companies like Beluga explode confirms our approach—offering standalone messaging and photo-sharing experiences outside our bloated monolithic app.”— Internal memo, Facebook
“A worrying trend is that more and more people, including high school friends and even Facebook employees, are using Instagram daily—and they’re only uploading a few of those photos to Facebook. That’s creating a big gap for us. I’m convinced our platform and social dynamics need a serious rethink to address this.”— Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
Facebook Considered Buying Instagram to Slow Its Momentum
“I wonder if we should consider acquiring Instagram—even if it costs ~$500 million. They’ve got two things we don’t: a great camera experience and a photo-focused social network.”— Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
“It’s entirely possible we were wrong and they were right—people might prefer taking beautiful photos over posting everything to Facebook. We might seriously want to consider paying a lot more to acquire them.”— Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
“We should make a case for buying out companies like Path, Pinterest, Instagram, Evernote—basically any product we admire or see as doing great things—if we can (1) retain their product as-is, while integrating their team into Facebook, and (2) keep them committed to our platform for 4+ years.”— Samuel W. Lessin (Former Facebook VP of Product), in alignment with Zuckerberg, February 2012
The Plan: Don’t Kill Instagram—Just Starve It Quietly
“We’ll keep Instagram running, but we won’t add any new features. All future development will focus on our own products. We’ll quietly integrate their camera tech into ours. That way we avoid backlash and don’t leave an opening for competitors. But we control where things go from there.”
“You could look at this as buying time. Even if new competitors pop up, buying Instagram, Path, or Foursquare gives us 12+ months to integrate their features and cement our dominance before anyone else gets close to their scale.”
In short, long before acquiring Instagram, Facebook’s leadership clearly saw it as a dangerous rival. The internal emails paint a picture of a company that didn’t just want to compete—but to eliminate competition before it ever had a chance to grow.
Posts
0 Comments