[basch]

There is a point where changing the rules now appears to benefit incumbents, despite them being the targets here. Nobody new will be able to grow this way to compete with existing large players. If they cant acquire small things, they will just be forced to clone them, yet the smaller tier players wont be able to "just clone things."

Instagram falls into the same category. When Mark acquired it, it was tiny. He is who grew it. Facebook acquired a mobile camera app because it didn't have an app yet. Same how it acquired Beluga and turned it into messenger. Adobe acquiring Photoshop, then Macromedia. Mirosoft acquiring Powerpoint and then hotmail.com.

[cmrdporcupine]

I don't think your analogy holds here; Instagram was already an active and popular social network before Facebook acquired it, not a "camera app." Did it grow? Certainly. While we don't know what would have happened to it had FB not bought it, it's quite possible FB bought it precisely because it was growing and becoming 'cool.'

[basch]

Instagram was what, 19 month old when FB bought it? It has 13 employees. It had 0 revenue. It had 30 million people on it. (Facebook hit a billion people in 2012.)

It was tiny. It was the hip up-and-coming app. It had the limelight, and importantly to FB it was mobile first.

I think our memories like to kind of project back its success after acquisition onto what it was before, and get distorted by its billion dollar price. He paid a lot for a not a lot, because he was buying a fad while it was still hot, before Twitter or Google could. He then dumped gasoline on a matchstick. Would ANYBODY else have poured that much money into Instagram that quickly? I think we can all picture what would have happened to it if it had found its way into the Twitter portfolio. (I would surmise it may no longer even exist and have been folded into Twitter having a picture posting feature.)

In hindsight it was absolutely anti-competitive in some way, but I don't know how the law could act to block buying shiny things with potential.

[whatshisface]

The law is usually applied in retrospect, for what it's worth.