FTC v. Meta: the antitrust battle over Instagram and WhatsApp
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Judge asks why it’s ‘laughable’ that WhatsApp’s investors could force an ad model.
Boasberg asks Rim why he thinks WhatsApp would have eventually generated revenue despite the founders’ initial resistance to an ad model. One of the app’s investors, Jim Goetz, had earlier testified that it was “laughable” to suggest he could convince the founders to adopt ads.
While Rim agrees that WhatsApp’s investors couldn’t force the founders to do it, he says it was clear that a subscription model wouldn’t be sustainable. The fact that Goetz discussed an ad model or social network in investor memos suggests he thought it was a possible monetization path.
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