Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

There is lots of talk about the $10 billion the company is spending on the Metaverse, but that is R&D; the more important number for this moat is the $30 billion this year in capital expditures, most of which is going to servers for AI. That AI is doing recommendations now, but Meta’s moat will only deepen if Lessin is right about a future wher... See more

The payoff, though, will not be “power” for these small creators: the implication of entertainment being dictated by recommendations and AI instead of reputation and ranking is that all of the power accrues to the platform doing the recommending.

Sure, some number of people continued to use Instagram primarily as a social network, but Meta, more than anyone, had an understanding of how Instagram usage had evolved over time.

In recommendation media, content is not distributed to networks of connected people as the primary means of distribution. Instead, the main mechanism for the distribution of content is through opaque, platform-defined algorithms that favor maximum attention and engagement from consumers. The exact type of attention these recommendations seek is alw

... See more