Judge Boasberg Throws Out FTC Case, Meta Keeps Instagram & WhatsApp (18 Nov 2025)

Antitrust history is littered with cases that aged poorly—IBM’s 13-year suit (1969-82) was dropped when the mainframe market had already fragmented, and Microsoft’s 1998 consent decree looked quaint once Google eclipsed Windows. The Meta ruling slots into that pattern: by the time regulators attacked decade-old deals, consumer attention had migrated to TikTok-style short-video feeds, eroding Meta’s classic ‘social graph’ moat. The decision underscores two long-term trends: (1) digital markets mutate faster than court dockets, making static market-share tests ill-suited, and (2) U.S. antitrust law still prioritises present consumer harm over prophylactic break-ups. Whether this moment matters in a century hinges on whether today’s data-driven platforms coalesce into utilities (inviting future trust-busting à la AT&T 1982) or remain in perpetual flux where yesterday’s titan is tomorrow’s casualty; the ruling bets on the latter, but history shows both outcomes remain plausible.