Even though Carlton says Instagram has been such a “grand slam home run” that it’s hard to imagine it doing even better without Meta, the FTC points to past markets where output increased even while plagued by a monopolist. It pulls up a slide used by the Justice Department in its antitrust case against Google, showing that global PC shipments increased while Microsoft dominated, with similar trends for long distance calls during AT&T’s monopoly, and global crude oil production at the height of Standard Oil’s power. Carlton says that anything is possible and “the moon could fall out of the sky tomorrow, but if you’re asking me if its likely that output would be higher in the but-for world, the answer would be no.”