Read what Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook executives said before purchasing Instagram
The first week of Meta Antitrust Test It brought new revelation about how the company, previously known as Facebook, approached the competitive threat posed by Instagram in the early 2010s.
The US government has accused Meta of violating competition laws by acquiring companies such as Instagram and WhatsApp that threatened its Facebook monopoly. If a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawyer is successful, the government can disband Meta by selling Instagram and WhatsApp.
As part of the trial, the FTC shared compelling evidence to demonstrate that, as Facebook’s photo sharing apps were becoming more popular, they were very aware of the risks that Instagram had created for their business. In a document that includes Facebook’s internal email, Facebook executives will discuss how much they will pay for the app, regarding Instagram growth, if Facebook gets it.
Company executives will also discuss other strategies to limit Instagram growth. This means no longer adding new features while working on your own products, such as copying that feature, releasing your own app, or purchasing your app.
According to government debates, Facebook’s strategy to buy or fill in competition is on display in these conversations. In addition to showing how the company was thinking about competition at the time, the message cites the fierce throat strategy that allowed the Meta to become the social networking giant that is what it is today.
Some of the highlights of these messages can be found below:
Mark Zuckerberg and others are worried about the rapid growth of Instagram
- “Instagram appears to be growing rapidly. With up to 2 million users in four months and 30k photo uploads daily. This is very close. You need to track this closely. And the next big push for Dropbox will be photo sharing.” – Mark Zuckerberg, February 2011
- “If Instagram keeps kicking ass on mobile, or if Google buys them, it’s easy to add some of the services that copy what we’re doing right now for the next few years. But why we use them. – September 2011, Mark Zuckerberg
- “The Photography team is currently focusing mostly on the new mobile photo app to take off Instagram’s simple photo sharing app (and even our own apps are seeing fat growth… Mobile uploads increased to +5.3 w/w on a 17.7m day..” – Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer, February 2011
- “One thing about the trend is that a huge number of people use Instagram every day – including everyone from non-tech high school friends to FB employees – they’re just uploading some of their photos to FB. – Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
Facebook considers buying Instagram and stops its development and growth
- “Do you think we should consider buying Instagram, even if it takes 500m. For now, it looks like there are two things we don’t have. It’s a really good camera and a photo-centric shared network.” – Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
- “I think it’s pretty possible that our first paper was wrong and they were right. What people want is to take the best photos than post on FB. – Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
- “I think there is a serious argument that you actually need to buy Pass, Pinterest, Instagram, Evernote, etc. – Samuel W. Lessons in February 2012 (formerly Facebook vp product)
- “What we’re trying to do is keep the product running and not add more features to it, and not focus future development on products that include building all camera features. By not killing the product, we prevent everyone from hating us, and make sure someone else quickly drills holes in the market for someone else to fill it up.” – Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012
- “One way to see this is that what we really are buying is time. Even if some new competitors are born, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare and more gives everyone more than a year to integrate dynamics before they get closer to scale again.” – Mark Zuckerberg, February 2012