The purpose of a Walled Garden is to sell owned-and-operated ad inventory that directs users to non-owned destinations. The purpose of a Content Fortress is to sell owned-and-operated ad inventory that directs users to content hosted by the Content Fortress — either content that it owns itself or third-party content that it has subsumed onto its... See more

Pinterest introduced the “Shop from Pin” feature in 2020, which gives retailers the ability to include shopping ads for specific, relevant products directly into Pinterest search content and feeds. But these ads currently lead to retailer websites, where transactions take place outside of Pinterests’ purview. PayPal’s ownership would provide the... See more

PayPal’s acquisition of Pinterest would create a formidable Content Fortress: by combining PayPal’s payments platform with Pinterest’s advertising infrastructure, it could allow advertisers to bring about purchases for their products directly in the Pinterest app, which would give Pinterest first-party access to the data emitted by those... See more

Since ATT was rolled out, a number of social media platforms have begun to transition into Content Fortresses by subsuming the content interactions that they previously facilitated off-platform through selling advertising.

PayPal is rumored to be in advanced discussions to acquire Pinterest, the social media platform constructed around image sharing, at a price of $45BN. If the deal is consummated, it will be the highest-priced consumer internet acquisition of the last decade.