Microsoft Azure executive Jason Vallery gives even more detail about how cloud services can help companies efficiently run their businesses at relatively low cost, even without their own massive data centers. Again, this speaks to the FTC’s argument that a company like Instagram could have scaled without Meta’s help. In a 2023 deposition, Vallery talks about how customers use cloud services for their cost, capability, and security benefits.
In a 2023 deposition, AWS general manager for sales Jason Bennett testified about how companies use its services to run their businesses. Instagram used AWS prior to its acquisition, but we’ve also heard from other AWS customers like Pinterest and Reddit. The testimony seems meant to demonstrate that Instagram theoretically could have scaled with AWS, even without access to Meta’s infrastructure.
Benjamin Davenport, who became part of Facebook Messenger’s founding team after his mobile messaging app Beluga was acquired, testified in a 2022 deposition that he worried in 2012 that Google could acquire WhatsApp and “bake it into Android.” Google could then make WhatsApp the default option on the operating system, and quickly growing its distribution, he says. Davenport wrote in a 2012 message that Google could create “a cross-platform iMessage with a far larger network.”
In a 2017 competitive assessment, Pinterest warned that Instagram was “taking direct aim at our core turf.” On cross-examination, Meta is working to show that Pinterest actually does see itself in direct competition with its products. At the time, Pinterest noted there was a “rapid increase in customer overlap” with Instagram and the app was even “replicating” some of its own features, like the ability to save pictures.
The FTC has asked several witnesses today about their trust and safety operations and infrastructure investments, which might be a way to show that even apps without Meta’s backing can maintain robust operations — just as Instagram might have. Roberts testifies, for example, that she’s not aware of any concerns that staying on AWS servers would limit Pinterest’s growth in the future.
The app changed its category in the Apple app store from social to lifestyle around 2018, Roberts testifies. “When users come to Pinterest expecting it to be like other social media apps, they tend to be confused about how to use the product since people are not really forefront of the experience,” she says — it’s more about finding things they’re interested in. “It just doesn’t set the right expectation if people have a mental model of another social media company when they come to Pinterest.”
For our third live social media witness of the day, Pinterest’s former director of product management Julia Roberts is testifying about how the app caters its product to users. The FTC is highlighting how Pinterest is focused around users’ interests, rather than connecting with friends and family — an element it says is core to Meta’s dominance. Roberts testifies, for example, that unlike on a platform like Instagram, “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”
In a video deposition, Reddit executive Winter Raymond, who leads the company’s ads and commercial legal teams, says Reddit hasn’t considered offering a social networking services. Raymond says users come to Reddit to find their community, and says the ability to use pseudonyms is very important to its users.
Meta’s attorney asks essentially one question of Ortega on cross-examination: does Strava compete with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter for workout content? Ortega says these apps “can compete for content related to workouts,” and then is excused from the stand.