Zuckerberg's 1,000-plus words open letter shows Apple's iPhone change still hurts Meta
Mark Zuckerberg's recent op-ed on AI is interpreted as a reflection of his ongoing frustration with Apple's 2021 privacy changes that severely impacted Meta's advertising revenue. The article argues that Zuckerberg's push for open-source AI is a strategic move to regain control over his platform's ecosystem.
Why it matters
This highlights the intense power struggle between big tech companies over data ownership and the future of digital advertising.
Mark Zuckerberg spent more than a thousand words in The Wall Street Journal this week arguing that superintelligence should belong to everyone rather than a handful of institutions. Published on July 28, the op-ed is dressed up as philosophy. It talks about liberty, open inquiry, invention over automation, and what Zuckerberg calls a balance of power. It name-drops the Wright brothers and Michael Faraday. Read it once and it sounds like a founder thinking about the next century.Read it twice and it starts to sound like the longest thing Zuckerberg has ever written about a settings toggle. That toggle shipped in April 2021 inside iOS 14.5. Apple's App Tracking Transparency asked iPhone users a simple question before an app could follow them across the internet, and most users said no. Meta's then-CFO Dave Wehner put the 2022 damage at about $10 billion.
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