When Meta Cannot Pick the Udara Fruit
Not a bad outcome for the Facebook owner. At least, when the regulators accuse it of picking Instagram for nothing, and making it a category-king, it can also offer a counter-argument: we lost money on Giphy: “Meta has reached an agreement with content marketplace company Shutterstock to sell Giphy for $53 million, following the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s ruling, forcing the social media company to divest Giphy months after it was purchased”...for $400 million.
In the Igbo Nation, elders will say that an udara fruit which falls on the road side is asking to be eaten. The EU and UK regulators are telling Mark Zuckerberg one thing: if you see the udara, close your eyes and pass because acquisition cannot and will not be approved for Meta!
Of course, Meta does not need your sympathy. Yes, it is a regulator itself when you consider how it also bans and takes people out of its ecosystem. One algorithm change, companies fade.
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From LinkedIn News: Meta is set to sell Giphy to Shutterstock for US$53 million, a massive write down for the Facebook parent, which bought the sharable GIF and microvideo service for $315 million in 2020. Holding on to Giphy isn’t an option for Meta: U.K. regulators ordered the tech giant to offload the service, arguing that the merger was bad for competition. The deal is expected to close next month, giving stock-photo marketplace Shutterstock’s access to Giphy’s 1.7 billion users.
Meta tried to convince U.K. regulators not to force the sale, arguing in a filing that gifs “have fallen out of fashion” and are viewed as "for boomers" and "cringe" by young users.