[394549]

>> And shame on the government for not doing any due diligence in trying to prevent this acquisition/monopoly.

> Monopoly? In 2012, Instagram had 40 million users and no revenue[1]. Hardly a monopoly.

I think you misunderstand. Facebook is the monopoly in the grandparent, not the independent Instagram.

I believe the GP's point is that the government should have blocked FB's acquisition of IG, so IG could have provided competition for FB.

[slezakattack]

I don't think I misunderstand. In 2012, there were quite a few up and coming social media apps. Twitter, Vine (2013), Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat (2011), and even Google+. Plenty of competition from both small and big companies. I'm not saying Facebook isn't a monopoly but given the options, you can't possibly think that at the time Instagram was going to be the "Facebook killer".

In hindsight, sure, we'd all love that. But seeing the recent FB hearings with congress, it seems they are still figuring out what the internet is.