Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Testifies In Social Media Addiction Trial

(Wally Skalij/Getty Images)

vertically challenge

First Snapchat, now TikTok: Instagram has mastered the art of borrowing features

The latest user data suggests its pivot to video with Reels over five years ago has paid off.

3/2/26 9:59AM

Facebook was not really close to being the first name in the social media game, with SixDegrees, MySpace, Friendster, and a long list of now defunct sites exploring the idea of creating platforms to connect people online before Mark Zuckerberg’s company. However, it was Facebook, despite arriving somewhat late to the party, that won out in the end, iterating on the idea and focusing on college campuses like the one where its 19-year-old creator found himself at the time.

The Meta CEO hasn’t really been shy to borrow, or simply buy, good ideas ever since.

When Instagram was blowing up, Zuck and co. saw a potential threat to Facebook, eventually buying the app that had just 13 employees for $1 billion. When Snapchat’s “stories” concept proved wildly popular, it wasn’t long before Instagram had the same feature... with the same name. More recently, after Elon Musk relaunched Twitter as X, Meta was quick to push out Threads, its text-based alternative.

Back when a new challenge emerged from the then Chinese-owned TikTok, Instagram replied with Reels, its own vertical feed, in August 2020. Now, more than five years later, it’s fair to say that Meta seems to have pulled it off again.

The reel deal

While it might be true that if you see a funny TikTok video, you can expect to see the same content recycled on Reels a few weeks later, for Insta users (and Meta’s mighty advertising machine), it doesn’t seem to matter. The once photo-focused app’s daily user count has overtaken TikTok’s in the US once more, according to data from Similarweb, a digital market intelligence company.

Instagram and TikTok users chart — Sherwood News

Now, the compelling, algorithmic content feeds that dominate the time and attention of people the world over are so powerful that not a week goes by without policymakers, scientists, and millions of everyday doomscrollers wondering about the negative effects they might have on their lives.

Indeed, the very concept of the “infinite scroll,” made popular by TikTok, is so addictive that the European Union is looking to kill the feature entirely.

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Rani Molla2h

Despite a massive surge in corporate AI spending, the technology is broadly failing to deliver the massive cost reductions executives had anticipated, according to a new global survey from Bain & Co. shared with Bloomberg. The largest share of major companies measuring their AI returns — 40% — realized cost savings of 10% or less, with poor access to internal data cited as the primary roadblock. Most had expected higher returns. More concerningly, Bain warned that many companies are using their original, overly optimistic projections — rather than their actual savings — to justify funding their next wave of expensive AI investments, creating a “circular bet with a structural leak.”

Rani Molla

Meta thinks it can save its hardware division with AI subscriptions. There are reasons to be skeptical.

An $8 AI subscription won’t plug a $19 billion hardware hole.

A visitor is seen trying a Ray-Ban Meta glasses at a Meta

Jon Keegan3h

Anthropic confidentially files for IPO

Anthropic has filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission for its initial public offering. The IPO is expected to be one of the largest in US history, and will likely be joined by OpenAI, which is also expected to go public before the end of the year.

The company filed a draft S-1 form with the SEC, which does not indicate the price of the offering. The official public S-1, which will come later, will give potential shareholders a first look at the finances of Anthropic, which just last week announced that it raised $65 billion, reaching a valuation of $965 billion. This puts the company well ahead of archrival OpenAI, which is currently valued at $850 billion.

Anthropic confidentially submits draft S-1 to the SEC

Rani Molla5h

Prosus may thwart Uber’s bid for Delivery Hero

Uber’s aggressive pursuit of Delivery Hero could hit a major roadblock. After the European food delivery giant rejected Uber’s initial $11.6 billion buyout offer, the American company pivoted, scooping up a 37% stake in the open market.

Now, Prosus, formerly Delivery Hero’s largest shareholder, is plotting a counteroffensive.

Thanks to an EU regulatory waiver Monday that temporarily pauses its mandatory stock sell-down, the Amsterdam-based investment firm is reportedly looking to either increase its stake or rally other shareholders against Uber. The goal: block the takeover entirely or force a significantly higher premium.

Prosus has warned about the loss of European tech relevance if a US giant swallows the company. Meanwhile, investors are loving the drama: the takeover tug-of-war, which also includes DoorDash, has sent Delivery Hero stock soaring over 75% in the past month.

Uber faces Prosus challenge in Delivery Hero pursuit

Rani Molla6h

Tesla sales surge in European markets in May

Tesla sales surged across Europe in May, Reuters reports, with sales jumping double and even triple digits in a number of early-reporting markets. Of course, 2025 was a very difficult year for Tesla sales in Europe, so the growth is coming off notably small denominators.

Interestingly, the resurgence is happening without EU approval for supervised Full Self-Driving, something CEO Elon Musk predicted would cause sales to “improve significantly” after blaming the absence of the tech for its weak sales.

The company has received approval for a version of its FSD tech in the Netherlands, as well as Lithuania and Estonia, and expects “EU-wide” permission in the second or third quarter.