The Walled Garden Gets a Visit from the Regulator
Let’s be honest, Meta’s strategy is as subtle as a sledgehammer. With over two billion people chatting away on WhatsApp, they have a captive audience of staggering proportions. So, what do they do? They slam the door in the face of any rival AI chatbot, like ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot, while rolling out the red carpet for their own in-house AI. It’s the digital equivalent of a pub landlord only letting you drink his homebrew, even if it tastes like dishwater.
The EU calls this an abuse of market dominance. I call it business as usual for a tech giant. For years, the playbook has been the same. Build a massive platform, lock the gates, and then milk your users for all they’re worth. But Brussels is signalling that this particular game may be up. They are asking a simple question. Is it fair for Meta to use its control over our conversations to force its own AI upon us? The answer, I suspect, will be a resounding no.