Inside the Meta Monopoly Trial

Meta has a well-earned reputation as the most nimble company in tech. Has your startup launched a great feature that people love? Before you can say “Series B,” Meta will have built something similar, embedded it in its more popular platform, and eaten your lunch. CEO Mark Zuckerberg may not want to look at his empire this way, but it’s actually an asset; few companies have done such a good job of identifying trends and jumping on them.

However, sometimes jumping on trends means spending billions to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. And sometimes it lands you in an antitrust trial against the FTC. Over the past several weeks, in a D.C. courtroom, executives and experts have been asked whether Meta bought those companies and helped them achieve greatness—or bought them to prevent them from doing so. Judge James Boasberg believes this argument will have a huge impact on the entire industry.

In this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Lauren Fenner tells us what we've learned so far in the trial. (Lauren has been at the courthouse almost every day of testimony—we finally caught up with her on a holiday.) She explains why WhatsApp is so hard to understand, why TikTok is playing a key role in this case on all sides, and why there's so much talk about "friends and family." It’ll take some time to know who won this case, and even more time to understand what it all means, but Lauren has an idea of which way the wind is blowing now.

Next, The Verge's Victoria Song joins the show to talk about her latest experience with Google's Android XR smartglasses. She compares this month's demo to one she saw a few months ago and explains why Google's partnership with Gentle Monster could be a big deal. She also shares thoughts on some of the ideas Jony Ive and OpenAI are building together—if it’s not smartglasses, what could it be?

Finally, we answer a question from the Vergecast hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about what you should do now that Mozilla is shutting down the Pocket read-later app. Pocket had a lot of users who saved a lot of links, but fortunately, there are some good alternatives out there.

If you want to learn more about everything we discussed in this episode, here are some links to help you get started:

• FTC vs. Meta: The Antitrust Battle Over WhatsApp and Instagram

• Did WhatsApp really need Meta?

• Why the FTC argues Meta is a closer rival to MeWe than TikTok

• Instagram CEO testifies about competing with TikTok: 'You're either growing, or you're slowly dying'

• Android XR is getting stylish partners like Warby Parker, Gentle Monster

• We tried out Google's prototype AI smartglasses

• Android XR and Project Moohan experience: Gemini is a great app

• What the hell are Jony Ive and Sam Altman building?

• Mozilla is shutting down Pocket

• Raindrop.io

• Instapaper

• Matter

• Wallabag

• Readwise Reader