Meta and the Shape of Digital Markets – Stratechery by Ben Thompson

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On that note, here were a few of our favorites this week.

1. Three Eras of Facebook. President Bill Clinton once said that China’s efforts to censor its domestic Internet would be like “trying to nail jello to a wall,” and, well, some takes age better than others! Nevertheless, Clinton’s imagery is still great, and I was thinking about nailing jello to a wall as I read Ben’s Tuesday Update on market definition in the FTC v. Meta case. The trial to potentially break up Meta, Instagram and WhatsApp began Monday, and as part of its case the FTC has to define the relevant market in which Meta has illegally wielded monopoly power. That task becomes much trickier when the market for social media has shape-shifted at least three times in 15 years, and today features credible competition for market share from, ironically, a Chinese company. Ben’s piece on Tuesday is trenchant analysis of a threshold issue in what could be a landmark case, and if you want to go deeper, we discussed it all in a free episode of Sharp Tech on Thursday. — Andrew Sharp
2. The GOAT and the Playoffs. The playoffs are the best time of the NBA year, and the Greatest of All Talk is — in my biased opinion! — the best NBA podcast there is. There’s no better time to hop on board and follow along with Andrew Sharp and the Washington Post’s Ben Golliver: twice a week, all year long, they produce great hoops conversations, and their chemistry makes for one the most enjoyable podcasts you’ll find on any subject. I’m pretty pessimistic about my Bucks, but optimistic that you won’t regret giving GOAT a try. — Ben Thompson
3. Remember the CHIPS Act? In the shadow of a US-China trade war with dozens of vectors, and in the midst of ongoing U.S. anxieties about domesticating manufacturing in dozens of industries, there remains one industry, and one vector, that’s most critical to American national security and prosperity. To that end, Ben’s interview with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan, two alums of the Commerce Department who helped implement the CHIPS Act, was a useful window into round-the-clock work that’s been done to domesticate chipmaking, holes in U.S. policy that remain, and what should be done over the next several years. After two exhausting weeks monitoring bond markets, it’s a refreshing grounding in the realities of building physical, and critical, American infrastructure. — AS

Stratechery Articles and Updates

• An Interview with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan About CHIPS — An interview with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan about their work distributing CHIPS program money, and why they are optimistic about U.S. industrial policy going forward.
• Nvidia H20 Restricted in China, The Huawei CloudMatrix 384, Whither Chip Controls — It appears that Nvidia will never be allowed to sell AI accelerators to China again, even crappy ones, while Huawei makes its own supercomputer with outside help.
• Meta v. FTC, The Three Facebook Eras, Video Slop and Market Forces — The FTC’s case against Facebook doesn’t make sense because it conflates three distinct Facebook eras, and today’s era is very much defined by competition.
• ChatGPT Memory, Boundaries and AI Companions, Auren — ChatGPT’s memory feature is pretty basic, but it’s the sort of product feature that can build a moat, particularly if it’s extended to other use cases.

Dithering with Ben Thompson and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber

Asianometry with Jon Yu

Sharp China with Andrew Sharp and Sinocism’s Bill Bishop

Greatest of All Talk with Andrew Sharp and WaPo’s Ben Golliver

Sharp Tech with Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson

This week’s Sharp Tech video is on Apple’s AI crisis and what was lost after Steve Jobs.