{"id":25939,"date":"2025-04-14T14:34:27","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T14:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25939"},"modified":"2025-04-14T15:29:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T15:29:31","slug":"what-if-mark-zuckerberg-had-not-bought-instagram-and-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25939","title":{"rendered":"What If Mark Zuckerberg Had Not Bought Instagram and WhatsApp?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Meta\u2019s antitrust trial, in which the government contends the company killed competition by buying young rivals, hinges on unknowable alternate versions of Silicon Valley history.<\/p>\n

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In 2012, when Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> cut a $1 billion check to buy the photo-sharing app Instagram<\/a>, most people thought he had lost his marbles.<\/p>\n

\u201cA billion dollars of money?\u201d joked<\/a> Jon Stewart, then the host of The Daily Show. \u201cFor a thing that kind of ruins your pictures?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Stewart called the decision \u201creally lame.\u201d His audience \u2014 and much of the rest of the world \u2014 agreed that Mr. Zuckerberg had overpaid for an app that highlighted a bunch of photo filters.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Mr. Zuckerberg opened his wallet again when Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp<\/a> for $19 billion. Many Americans had never heard of the messaging app, which was popular internationally but was not well known in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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No one knew how these deals would turn out. But hindsight, it seems, is 20\/20.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the government argued in a landmark antitrust trial<\/a> that both acquisitions \u2014 now considered among the greatest in Silicon Valley history \u2014 were the actions of a monopolist guarding his turf. Mr. Zuckerberg, in turn, was set to contend that were it not for these deals, his company \u2014 which has been renamed Meta<\/a> \u2014 would just be an afterthought in the social media landscape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mark Zuckerberg, Meta\u2019s chief executive, is set to contend in the company\u2019s antitrust trial that were it not for buying Instagram and WhatsApp, his firm might just be an afterthought in the social media landscape.<\/span>Jason Andrew for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Meta\u2019s antitrust trial, in which the government contends the company killed competition by buying young rivals, hinges on unknowable alternate versions of Silicon Valley history.In 2012, when Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg cut a $1 billion check to buy the photo-sharing app Instagram, most people thought he had lost his marbles.\u201cA billion dollars of money?\u201d joked Jon Stewart, then the host of The Daily Show. \u201cFor a thing that kind of ruins your pictures?\u201dMr. Stewart called the decision \u201creally lame.\u201d His audience \u2014 and much of the rest of the world \u2014 agreed that Mr. Zuckerberg had overpaid for an app that highlighted a bunch of photo filters.Two years later, Mr. Zuckerberg opened his wallet again when Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion. Many Americans had never heard of the messaging app, which was popular internationally but was not well known in the United States.No one knew how these deals would turn out. But hindsight, it seems, is 20\/20.On Monday, the government argued in a landmark antitrust trial that both acquisitions \u2014 now considered among the greatest in Silicon Valley history \u2014 were the actions of a monopolist guarding his turf. Mr. Zuckerberg, in turn, was set to contend that were it not for these deals, his company \u2014 which has been renamed Meta \u2014 would just be an afterthought in the social media landscape.Mark Zuckerberg, Meta\u2019s chief executive, is set to contend in the company\u2019s antitrust trial that were it not for buying Instagram and WhatsApp, his firm might just be an afterthought in the social media landscape.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25941,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25942,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25939\/revisions\/25942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}