What if Mark Zuckerberg did not buy Instagram and WhatsApp?

In 2012, when Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg cut $ 1 billion investigation Buy photo-sharing app InstagramMost people thought that he had lost his marbles.

“One billion dollar money?” Jokingly said John Stewart, then hosts of “The Daily Show”. “For a thing that ruins your pictures?”

Mr. Stewart called the decision “really lame”. His audience – and most of the people of the rest of the world – agreed that Mr. Zuckerberg had overped for an app, which highlighted a group of photo filters.

Two years later, Mr. Zuckerberg opened his wallet again when Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp For $ 19 billion. Many Americans had never heard of the messaging app, which was popular internationally, but was well known in the United States.

Nobody knew how these deals would come out. But it seems that it seems, 20/20.

On Monday, the government argued in a historic no -confidence test that both acquisitions – now considered the greatest in the history of Silicon Valley – a monopolist was the tasks guarding their turf. Mr. Zuckerberg, in turn, was ready that it was not for these deals, his company – which is named Meta – will be only one later in the social media scenario.

But the case, which can bring about the breakdown of one of the most powerful companies of Tech, is largely dealt with in imaginary. Neither the government nor Mr. Zuckerberg had predicted how the technology would have proceeded since the $ 1 billion examination for Instagram, or what happened if the regulators did not approve the purchase. This makes the Meta’s antitrust case one of the most slippery in a technical industry that has long been defined by unpredictableness.

Regarding Facebook’s acquisition, Margaret O’Ara, a technical historian at the University of Washington, said, “It was a very different time in Silicon Valley.” “Oh, wow, there was a stretch of Facebook, actually a group of children who are spending extraordinary!”

I was at that time with a front-ru seat in Facebook’s deal-making, especially with Instagram. As a reporter for the Wired magazine, I had an office next to the headquarters of Instagram in San Francisco. I looked at the Kimchi Burito location across the road near South Park Commons – a piece of green in the city – and ate on a bench outside the Instagram office.

Kevin Systrom, the 6-foot-5 co-founder of Instagram, was 28 years old. He often used to walk on laps around the wood-and-cargo swing in the South Park Commons, while the products call or talk with the employees. Jack Dorsi, a co-founder of Twitter, who identified an art child compared to a technology, also hung in the same South Park playground and gave friends about the ideas that eventually became his social media app.

It was still the era when social apps were rejected as a playing, to post a latte art or tell people what you were doing for breakfast. WhatsApp, which was growing rapidly internationally, was a text-message app without a business model. And clones of these apps were abundantly, such as colors in photo sharing, flicker and VSCO, and kick, Skype and Viber in messaging.

Even Facebook faced questions about whether it was a viable business. The Silicon Valley Company announced that she was buying Instagram, two months later, it was one of the most Disastrous technique initial public offerings The late 1990s since the Dot-Com-Com-era.

By the time Sri Systrom testified to California’s corporations after three months – a condition to shut down the deal with Facebook – Facebook shares fell almost half of their IPO price.

But in Silicon Valley, luck arises and falls quickly. Companies go from fans to Jugornots in a few years. And what can seem like a clever business step by an executive can be ridiculed in a wrong way quickly. (Half of the above apps are dead or dying or sold for parts long ago. My favorite Kimchi Burito place is also Not around now,

At that time, Sri Systrom gave a positive spin on the Instagram deal as the future looked fast for Facebook.

At the hearing of California corporations in August 2012, he said, “I have been taught throughout my life that all public markets have reverse and negative side.” “I still believe in Facebook’s long -term value.”

He turned out to be right. Today, Instagram and WhatsApp are two of the most important parts of the Meta business. Posts, videos and communications on platforms regularly make global conversations for sports, news, politics and culture. Apps have billions of users.

In some ways, antitrust trials are about competitive versions of technology history that could have been technical history. What would have happened, if, Say, Mr. Zuckerberg lost the dialect to Mr. Daisi for Instagram, which was Also trying to buy photo-sharing app For Twitter? What if WhatsApp sold Google, which was Shamping on the bit To add the messaging app to your portfolio?

What if other contestants created better photo-sharing apps, which could have been concluded if Facebook had not used Instagram to crush them? And what if Facebook had spoiled both deals, or could not live with competitive apps and fell back even after buying Instagram and WhatsApp?

These are unknown and can be answered only by someone with time machine. Each party is arguing on its version what would have been if the acquisition of the meta was never approved.

In the same “Daily Show” segment since 2012, Jessica Williams, Senior Youth Correspondent, said – tongue completely cheek – that Facebook’s purchase of Instagram made the true meaning.

“Before Instagram, if I wanted my photos look as if they were taken in the 60s, I would have to invent a time machine and travel back 50 years,” she said. “You know how much will be spent in the construction of the time machine?”

“Easily one billion dollars.”