Why Mark Zuckerberg was worried about Instagram hurting Facebook — and what he tried to do about it

• Instagram and Facebook have a bit of a sibling rivalry that Mark Zuckerberg had to navigate.
• Emails and other documents from Meta reveal how Instagram started to "cannibalize" Facebook.
• The documents are part of the FTC's antitrust lawsuit against Meta.

Every family has some drama, and Meta's has been coming to light through the release of court documents in recent days.

In particular, a sibling-like rivalry between Instagram and Facebook was brewing for years — and vexed Mark Zuckerberg.

Meta is in the middle of an antitrust trial brought by the FTC, which aims to break up the social media giant. Facebook's $1 billion 2012 acquisition of Instagram plays a large role in the FTC's case. The FTC argues that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp violated US competition law.

Internal emails and other documents from 2018 to 2022 reveal how Instagram and Facebook struggled to coexist.

In emails, Zuckerberg expressed concerns that the photo-sharing app had begun to "cannibalize" the Facebook app.

From Zuckerberg's POV, Facebook was driving Instagram's growth at the cost of engagement and its own relevance, and it was time for Instagram to return the favor.

That said, he also emphasized that he wanted Instagram to "keep growing, even understanding it will naturally cannibalize FB somewhat."

It was clearly a tricky situation for Zuckerberg to navigate.

"Out-of-context and years-old documents about acquisitions that were reviewed by the FTC more than a decade ago will not obscure the realities of the competition we face or overcome the FTC's weak case," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider.

Zuck's big regret

Several documents from 2018 show a recurring topic of concern: Instagram overshadowing Facebook.

"The Facebook app has historically driven most of Instagram's growth through bookmarks and other links, and has born a higher ad load tax," Zuckerberg said in a letter to board members in 2018. "This has contributed to a headwind for Facebook in that it sends some of its engagement to Instagram."

In May 2018, Zuckerberg wrote to several Facebook executives in an email that "one of the major mistakes I regret is not reducing the massive inorganic distribution to Instagram sooner."

"If we had stopped aggressively promoting Instagram at 500 million people, for example it would have had sufficient scale to build and compete on Stories and we would not have the same concern about network fragmentation that we have today," he said.

In the same email, Zuckerberg posed the question: Is Instagram "just a better product" than Facebook? Zuck didn't think so.

"All of our metrics suggests that Instagram is a good but overall less effective product, and is likely only growing so quickly because we promoted it heavily," Zuckerberg said.

Instagram had become the cooler, younger sibling

Facebook, meanwhile, needed to maintain relevance among its users as Instagram grew.

"When you get an Amazon Echo and start using it after you already use Amazon for commerce, you feel like Amazon is getting more relevant in your life," Zuckerberg said in the May 2018 email to executives. "However, when you get Instagram and start using that in addition to Facebook you feel like Facebook as a company is getting less relevant in your life."

Zuckerberg saw two options for improving Facebook's relevance at the time: double down on Facebook's branding when users opened Instagram and WhatsApp, or change the corporate brand entirely.

It did both.

In 2019, it introduced an "Instagram from Facebook" tagline. Then, in 2021, Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms.

Fast forward to 2022, and Facebook's relevance in users' lives was still a struggle.

"Right now IG is doing well on cultural relevance and FB isn't, so I'm more focused on figuring out a reasonable path for FB longer term," Zuckerberg said in an email to head of Facebook Tom Alison.

Trying to reel in Instagram

Throughout 2018, Zuckerberg discussed several options that could help preserve Facebook's cultural relevance and growth amid Instagram's "cannibalization."

Here are a few that were discussed in the court documents:

1. Promoting Instagram less. "Given our concern about these effects, we have reduced our promotions from Facebook to Instagram," Zuckerberg wrote to executives in May 2018. "These remain significant levers for changing the trajectory of the future growth of the family, and as painful as it would be to reduce Instagram growth and revenue forecasts — and manage the team through this — it is rational to pull these levers to effectively zero until we reach a reasonable balance."
2. Reducing Facebook's ad load. "There's absolutely no reason why IG ad load should be lower than FB at a time when … we're having engagement issues in FB," Zuckerberg said in a January 2018 email thread with executives. "If we were managing our company correctly, then at a minimum we'd immediately balance IG and FB ad load — this week or this month, not this year."
3. Spinning out Instagram was even floated as an option. Zuckerberg wondered if Facebook "should consider the extreme step of spinning Instagram out as a separate company," per the May 2018 email to executives. "I understand the business value of having Instagram and Facebook together, so I don't raise this lightly," he said.
4. Changing up internal leadership with a reorg. In 2018, there was a shake-up across the company. Chris Cox was appointed to oversee product across the "family" of apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger — and Adam Mosseri was moved from Facebook to Instagram as VP of product. "The reason we're trying a new org structure is because the status quo isn't working," Zuckerberg said. "Our apps are neither operating independently nor with a rational value exchange today. Instead, we are siphoning off the network from the Facebook app to artificially grow Instagram and Messenger."
5. Differentiating Instagram and Facebook. Zuckerberg wanted Instagram to focus more on public figures (like influencers) and video, and think about competing more seriously with YouTube, according to a 2018 exchange between him and Mosseri. Four years later, Zuckerberg would have a similar conversation with Alison. "Differentiating between IG and FB is important, but I think we need to find a strategy that doesn't leave one service picking up the scraps the other service leaves behind or having either service artificially or unreasonably constrain itself," Zuckerberg wrote to Alison in a 2022 email thread.

The drama wasn't just between the apps

The court documents also shed light on the mounting tension between Zuckerberg and Instagram's cofounders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, in the months before their ultimate departure from Facebook.

Zuckerberg's May 2018 email to executives reveals concerns around retaining Systrom and Kreiger at Facebook.

"Within our current discussion framework where we have to tread very carefully when discussing any possible downsides of promoting Instagram, I'm not sure how we'll even articulate the decisions I'm suggesting here to Kevin," Zuckerberg said.

Later in the email, Zuckerberg describes Systrom as "an excellent product leader who has built something massively successful" and a "good team player."

"But by the very fact of him pushing so hard for what he believes is right and our desire to retain him, we compromise more than we would for almost any other leader, and over time those compromises compound to creating a large imbalance in the value flows between the apps," Zuckerberg said.

A few months later, Mosseri and Zuckerberg also discussed Systrom.

"I caught up with Kevin briefly last night but it's hard for me to get a read on what's going on as the relationship is strained," Mosseri said in a June 2018 email to Zuckerberg about shifting Instagram's priorities. In August, Mosseri told Zuckerberg that Systrom and Krieger "seem to be struggling with all of this."

That September, both Systrom and Krieger stepped down from Instagram, with Mosseri taking over as head of Instagram.

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