Meta Argues Enshittification Isn't Real (arstechnica.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta thinks there's no reason to carry on with its defense after the Federal Trade Commission closed its monopoly case, and the company has moved to end the trial early by claiming that the FTC utterly failed to prove its case. "The FTC has no proof that Meta has monopoly power," Meta's motion for judgment (PDF) filed Thursday said, "and therefore the court should rule in favor of Meta." According to Meta, the FTC failed to show evidence that "the overall quality of Meta's apps has declined" or that the company shows too many ads to users. Meta says that's "fatal" to the FTC's case that the company wielded monopoly power to pursue more ad revenue while degrading user experience over time (an Internet trend known as "enshittification"). And on top of allegedly showing no evidence of "ad load, privacy, integrity, and features" degradation on Meta apps, Meta argued there's no precedent for an antitrust claim rooted in this alleged harm.
"Meta knows of no case finding monopoly power based solely on a claimed degradation in product quality, and the FTC has cited none," Meta argued. Meta has maintained throughout the trial that its users actually like seeing ads. In the company's recent motion, Meta argued that the FTC provided no insights into what "the right number of ads" should be, "let alone" provide proof that "Meta showed more ads" than it would in a competitive market where users could easily switch services if ad load became overwhelming. Further, Meta argued that the FTC did not show evidence that users sharing friends-and-family content were shown more ads. Meta noted that it "does not profit by showing more ads to users who do not click on them," so it only shows more ads to users who click ads.
Meta also insisted that there's "nothing but speculation" showing that Instagram or WhatsApp would have been better off or grown into rivals had Meta not acquired them. The company claimed that without Meta's resources, Instagram may have died off. Meta noted that Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom testified that his app was "pretty broken and duct-taped" together, making it "vulnerable to spam" before Meta bought it. Rather than enshittification, what Meta did to Instagram could be considered "a consumer-welfare bonanza," Meta argued, while dismissing "smoking gun" emails from Mark Zuckerberg discussing buying Instagram to bury it as "legally irrelevant." Dismissing these as "a few dated emails," Meta argued that "efforts to litigate Mr. Zuckerberg's state of mind before the acquisition in 2012 are pointless."
"What matters is what Meta did," Meta argued, which was pump Instagram with resources that allowed it "to 'thrive' -- adding many new features, attracting hundreds of millions and then billions of users, and monetizing with great success." In the case of WhatsApp, Meta argued that nobody thinks WhatsApp had any intention to pivot to social media when the founders testified that their goal was to never add social features, preferring to offer a simple, clean messaging app. And Meta disputed any claim that it feared Google might buy WhatsApp as the basis for creating a Facebook rival, arguing that "the sole Meta witness to (supposedly) learn of Google's acquisition efforts testified that he did not have that worry." In sum: A ruling in Meta's favor could prevent a breakup of its apps, while a denial would push the trial toward a possible order to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.
"Meta knows of no case finding monopoly power based solely on a claimed degradation in product quality, and the FTC has cited none," Meta argued. Meta has maintained throughout the trial that its users actually like seeing ads. In the company's recent motion, Meta argued that the FTC provided no insights into what "the right number of ads" should be, "let alone" provide proof that "Meta showed more ads" than it would in a competitive market where users could easily switch services if ad load became overwhelming. Further, Meta argued that the FTC did not show evidence that users sharing friends-and-family content were shown more ads. Meta noted that it "does not profit by showing more ads to users who do not click on them," so it only shows more ads to users who click ads.
Meta also insisted that there's "nothing but speculation" showing that Instagram or WhatsApp would have been better off or grown into rivals had Meta not acquired them. The company claimed that without Meta's resources, Instagram may have died off. Meta noted that Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom testified that his app was "pretty broken and duct-taped" together, making it "vulnerable to spam" before Meta bought it. Rather than enshittification, what Meta did to Instagram could be considered "a consumer-welfare bonanza," Meta argued, while dismissing "smoking gun" emails from Mark Zuckerberg discussing buying Instagram to bury it as "legally irrelevant." Dismissing these as "a few dated emails," Meta argued that "efforts to litigate Mr. Zuckerberg's state of mind before the acquisition in 2012 are pointless."
"What matters is what Meta did," Meta argued, which was pump Instagram with resources that allowed it "to 'thrive' -- adding many new features, attracting hundreds of millions and then billions of users, and monetizing with great success." In the case of WhatsApp, Meta argued that nobody thinks WhatsApp had any intention to pivot to social media when the founders testified that their goal was to never add social features, preferring to offer a simple, clean messaging app. And Meta disputed any claim that it feared Google might buy WhatsApp as the basis for creating a Facebook rival, arguing that "the sole Meta witness to (supposedly) learn of Google's acquisition efforts testified that he did not have that worry." In sum: A ruling in Meta's favor could prevent a breakup of its apps, while a denial would push the trial toward a possible order to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.
Does he think he is Obi-Wan? (Score:1)
"There is no shit" *hand wave*
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In fact, I believe he does.
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Yep, the delulu is strong with this one. And a lot of the super-rich these days. Essentially loosers with mountains of money. How pathetic. Money cannot buy you insight or a good personality.
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When the hand that's waving holds a stack of bills, the people who it is waved at tend to listen more.
Especially people in the first US administration that has not only openly embraced corruption, but glorifies it.
Re:Hate to say it, but Meta is right (Score:5, Informative)
It's not in the social media business that Meta is a damaging monopoly, it's in the ad business. It's not for shitting on the end user - who is, remember not the customer, they're the product - that they're being called a harmful monopoly, it's for using their monopoly to cause harm to competitors - and again, social media like Reddit, Tik Tok, and Slashdot aren't their competitors, other ad networks are.
That Meta is trying to distract from that by talking about social media, which is, again, not their business, is sad. That it's working (on you, at any rate) is sadder.
Re:Hate to say it, but Meta is right (Score:4, Insightful)
It's ludicrous to call Facebook etc. a monopoly. There are tons of alternatives (Reddit, TikTok, and even good ole Slashdot) and the barrier to entry is low.
Going to disagree on a couple bases:
One - TikTok didn't exist at the time this case is all about. Also, TikTok isn't remotely Facebook in terms of feature-set.
Two - Reddit... also doesn't remotely have the feature set of Facebook.
Three - Slashdot... is so distant from what Facebook is that it's not even funny.
If FaceBook shut the servers off tomorrow, sure, people would still be able to communicate with each other but not quite in the same network manner.
I'm not saying the case should be found in either party's favor... I'm not current enough on the evidence, but your examples disproving monopoly don't work, I think.
Re:Hate to say it, but Meta is right (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you misunderstand the problem.
Meta is wrong because it has a MONOPOLY on the AD market for it's OWN SITE/APPS. If it was forced to divest Instagram, instagram users could potentially be making more money than being locked in to facebook. Same with Whatsapp. These apps have basically gone down hill in the same way Twitter has, where there is an ad every second or third thing.
Likewise youtube is falling down this inshittification cliff when every 3rd or 4th thumbnail is a sponsored ad, and >50% of the ad loads are garbage that is longer than the video it's appearing on. I'm not sitting through a 50 minute long fucking ad that is just some shitty AI video someone else made to watch a 90 second music video.
Re: Hate to say it, but Meta is right (Score:2)
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I remember someone posting a blog post with a mock AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) UI where 90% of the screen space was Ads and 10% was for the actual conversations. That was 20-25y ago.
Companies will shove as much ads as they can, that means until the product (users) walks away. The problem is that Facebook is making it really hard to escape the Facebook ads, since they are all over the Internet and beyond the Meta domains and apps. So is Google, but that does not excuse the abuse.
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Luckily Brave is still able to block YouTube ads. Sometimes I click on a YouTube video in my regular browser (Safari), then an ad loads, and I have the time to copy the link into brave and start watching my intended video, before I can skip the ad in standard YouTube.
The level of ads in Youtube is a big turn down lately, which is good as it pushes more views to Netflix. I have shares of both Netflix and Google (as a former employee at both) but Netflix still treats their customers as actual customers. I'm n
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It's ludicrous to call Facebook etc. a monopoly. There are tons of alternatives (Reddit, TikTok, and even good ole Slashdot) and the barrier to entry is low.
I know it’s a “cheap” hosting move to use Facebook to run a business (as opposed to procuring standard hosting and your own domain), but there certainly is more than just cost that drives tens of millions there.
Tons of alternatives? Move an established business off Facebook and onto one of them and prove it then. See if subsequent sales can’t perhaps at least suggest a monopoly within a fiscal quarter.
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Re: Hate to say it, but Meta is right (Score:2, Funny)
This.
If your biz is only on Facebook, I figure you're probably running it out of Mom's basement.
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This.
If your biz is only on Facebook, I figure you're probably running it out of Mom's basement.
And if your business isn’t targeting the social media global audience, you’re probably limiting sales to Moms basement.
Perhaps that’s where the true monopoly is. Try and run a business without it. Any of it.
So every single time (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook faces a fundamental problem that every few years a crop of young teenagers grows up and doesn't want to be on the same social network as their parents. So the teenagers go find another Network and Facebook buys them out using their market dominance.
Now you're thinking like a user you need to think like a customer. Remember you're the product not the customer.
The customer are people buying ads. They pay significantly more because Facebook keeps buying out potential competitors. That's where the antitrust law violations are.
I mean I guess it's fair to say that without those antitrust violations it would be difficult for Facebook to survive because they couldn't keep forcing young people back on the Facebook by buying out their competitors and they would have to, gasp, innovate and compete by making entirely new products...
But I mean that is literally the entire point of antitrust law.
the machinery of capitalism has been fundamentally broken and we are all still just pretending everything is okay.
Re:So every single time (Score:5, Informative)
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A serious competitor to Facebook for social media starts to get traction Facebook buys them. You can Google the list of companies Facebook has bought and it is legion. Facebook faces a fundamental problem that every few years a crop of young teenagers grows up and doesn't want to be on the same social network as their parents. So the teenagers go find another Network and Facebook buys them out using their market dominance.
Facebook has another considerable problem in its quest to act like THE social media monopoly network while denying every accusation of being one.
By its own actions, it will become the world’s largest online graveyard. If it isn’t already.
Dead people might vote, but they don’t view ads or buy shit to justify advertising costs. Good luck convincing advertisers that your “user” numbers claims aren’t DOA and haven’t become a punch line.
Re: Hate to say it, but Meta is right (Score:2)
We have only lived with "the internet" for 30 years and there are new impacts. I wonder how many companies have millions of custom
Better, more accurate title: (Score:2)
"Privacy Rapist Claims Privacy Raping Isn't a Thing", also:
"Arsonist Claims to be Hero After Calling Fire Department", also:
....
There FTFY.
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Sebby the rapist spreading his rape fetish
Says the easily triggered (and cowardly) Meta[stasize] employee.
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You'd think they can't, but in fact they're doing it very successfully.
Normal legal procedure (Score:2)
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Sadly, you are correct. The biggest surprise should be if the court falls for it, but that wouldn't surprise me at all.
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Gaslighting.. (Score:2)
Re:Gaslighting.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But Facebook still has to go through the motions of pretending we have a functioning justice system so you get nonsense write ups like this from the lawyers. Extremely low effort because they know they won back in November.
I get it that pointing that out triggers a bunch of people but this is the consequences of voting in November. I don't think there is anyone on this website who doesn't understand that the Republican party is not going to enforce antitrust law. I do think there's a whole bunch of people that don't like being reminded of that fact
Just came back to Slashdot from Reddit... (Score:2)
After wasting entirely too much time while learning almost nothing I'm back to Slashdot...
Might still be wasting my time but I should at least learn something more frequently than every 1.5 days.
Oh well... serves me right for clicking on all those violent car accident videos..
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After wasting entirely too much time while learning almost nothing I'm back to Slashdot...
Might still be wasting my time but I should at least learn something more frequently than every 1.5 days.
Oh well... serves me right for clicking on all those violent car accident videos..
You learned something every 1.5 days? You're gonna be sorely disappointed coming back here.
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Slashdot is the only place I've never been banned from
Zuckerberg (Score:2)
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Many people are really crap at fact-checking. Hence they look whether somebody is powerful and has money instead, in a failed attempt to compensate.
Look in the Mirror (Score:2)
The company that has enshittified the internet argues that enshittification isn't real. How cute.
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Wasps are not responsible for beestings. (Score:1)
Re: Wasps are not responsible for beestings. (Score:2)
Perhaps you're late hearing the word.
https://americandialect.org/20... [americandialect.org]
Why am I reminded... (Score:2)
..of an alcoholic insisting he doesn't have a drinking problem?
Approaching enshittity (Score:4, Funny)
Enshittification is a designation made by observers which makes Meta intrinsically unqualified to say what is an is not. Business people call it different things, like a "return on investment ratio" but when a company decides to "optimize" profits they are trying to approach enshittity, the ideal point of maximum profit for the minimum investment.
Enshittification happens to everything made by a publicly traded company because once they are established they will optimize for profit.
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Enshittification happens to everything made by a publicly traded company because once they are established they will optimize for profit.
INdeed. There is no escaping it. The perverted (and deranged) incentives shape the business and its capabilities. They shape it into the ground, long-term, that is. The only defense is to not be publicly traded.
Well then your Product Managers... (Score:2)
Meta indeed (Score:1)
Meta Argues Enshittification Isn't Real
Well, there's certainly something meta going on, lol
The degradation of discourse is real, at any rate.
They have a point (Score:2)
The overall quality of Meta's apps has ALWAYS been shit.
both sides of the mouth (Score:2)
"Users love ads" and "If Apple can let users choose to block ads, it will ruin our business."
But I'm sure Meta's corporate attorneys will find jobs in the Trump Department of Justice when the company is broken up.
Enshitifier claims not to be enshittifier... (Score:2)
What else is new? Obviously the scammers, lamers and peddlers of crap will always claim to be no such thing...
The lowest level of enshittification (Score:2)
is the vacuum decay of the universe
From Wikipedia:
The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has never been a cheering one to contemplate. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in the new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. Nonetheless, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps over time the new vacuum would sustain if not life as we know it, at least some
Social Media caused brain damage (Score:2)
It's not real... (Score:2)
It's not real...it just infinitely isomorphic integer yet uncountable.
JoshK.
I've an abstract problem with this... (Score:1)
Is it possible to enshittify something that is already shit?
{o.o}