The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) timing could not have been worse: On the same day that Meta released its second quarter financial results, showing a 36 percent decline in net income and a 14 percent drop in ad prices because of rising competition, the FTC filed to block Meta’s acquisition of a fitness app, claiming the purchase would let “behemoth” Meta “expand its empire even further” and control the metaverse. I suspect that Meta’s shareholders wish the FTC’s claims of an “expanding empire” were true, but they are not.

At issue is Meta’s plan to purchase Within Unlimited and its popular virtual reality (VR) fitness app, Supernatural. Supernatural is popular: Greatist ranks it as the best overall VR fitness app and 3D Insider ranks it third, but Live Science doesn’t rank it. The FTC argues that the acquisition would “lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly” that would result in “less innovation, lower quality, higher prices, less incentive to attract and keep employees, and less consumer choice.”

Read dr. Jamison’s complete blog post at AEI.