Even with all the intelligence at their disposal, human beings have always retained a tendency to make mistakes every now and then. The evidence for the same is pretty evident throughout our history, with each testimony practically forcing us to go and find some sort of a defensive cover. We will, on our part, find that cover only when we bring dedicated regulatory bodies into the fold. You see, having a defined authority across each and every area was a game-changer, as it instantly gave us a protective cushion against many of our errors. However, this utopia was also pretty short-lived, and if we take a moment and assess things a little, we’ll see how technology was really at fault for it. We point the finger towards technology because, as soon as its layered nature arrived on the scene, it made every individual more vulnerable than ever before. This triggered a reality where we saw many people exploiting others for their own benefit. The sheer scale on which it was happening also overwhelmed our regulatory bodies, therefore sending us back to square one. Fortunately, though, that won’t the end of it. The regulatory industry will make a comeback. In fact, the stated dynamic has become increasingly apparent over the recent past, and one recent FTC move can only solidify it moving forward.
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a formal complaint against Meta in a bid to stop the company from acquiring Within, the company behind the virtual reality fitness app Supernatural. According to certain reports, the complaint is centred upon a belief that Meta, through its proposed acquisition, is trying to absorb competition in the fitness market. The agency backed up this claim by pointing out how, despite having more than enough resources to build something of its own around the stated block, Meta has been aggressive to just buy out its direct competitors, thus setting the stage for a possible monopoly. Talk about monopoly, the official goes on to say that the company has “become a key player at each level of the VR ecosystem: in hardware with its Meta Quest 2 headset, in app distribution with the Quest Store, and in apps with Beat Saber and several other popular titles,”
The stated accusation was interestingly followed by a bit on Mark Zuckerberg’s huge ambitions regarding VR, and of course, the Metaverse.
“Mr. Zuckerberg has made clear that his aspiration for the VR space is control of the entire ecosystem. As early as 2015, Mr. Zuckerberg instructed key Facebook executives that his vision for ‘the next wave of computing’ was control of apps and the platform on which those apps were distributed, making clear in an internal email to key Facebook executives that a key part of this strategy was for his company to be ‘completely ubiquitous in killer apps,” the complaint said.
So far, Meta has denied all claims that paint this deal as anti-competitive, but the final resolution here is something that remains to be known.