This is the bonkers opening of Meta’s response to the FTC’s claim of monopoly status for the company:
Today, only a fraction of time spent on Meta’s services – 7% on Instagram, 17% on Facebook – involves consuming content from online “friends” (“friend sharing”). A majority of time spent on both apps is watching videos, increasingly short-form videos that are “unconnected” – i.e., not from a friend or followed account – and recommended by AI-powered algorithms Meta developed as a direct competitive response to TikTok’s rise, which stalled Meta’s growth.
Only 7% of Instagram consumption is social. Facebook older audience falls in a still not-so-social figure of 17%.
Only 12 short years ago, Zuckerberg had a different focus:
For almost ten years, Facebook has been on a mission to make the world more open and connected.
Perhaps Meta’s shift reflects the company’s core value: making a profit. Early, it was profitable for Meta as people shared photos and made connections. Now, it’s profitable for the company to show compelling human content (a moniker I greatly dislike) amongst their impressive ad network. I suspect that most of this user generated content will be replaced with AI-generated pieces, a change that will almost certainly make the company even more profitable.
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