Stratechery’s Ben Thompson: Facebook’s Instagram acquisition was a regulatory failure – Recode

Instagram gave Facebook unfair reach, Thompson argues.

In effect, Ben Thompson has made the case for breaking up Facebook. Just like we needed to break up AT&T in the 80s to enable entrepreneurs to grow new companies, we need to break up Facebook to give new, innovative social apps the oxygen they need to grow. In recent years, Facebook has either snapped them up at an early point (Instagram) or replicated their most attractive features (Snapchat). Either way, Facebook emerges as more dominant and we become more captive of it.

It’s time to break up Facebook. It’s just too big to be good for anyone other than its shareholders.

Source: Stratechery’s Ben Thompson: Facebook’s Instagram acquisition was a regulatory failure – Recode