- TikTok gets banned in many countries, users mostly move to Instagram rather than YouTube.
- Twitter collapses, users move to Threads.
- Reddit deteriorates at a modest rate.
- Meta buys out at least one WhatsApp competitor (Discord? Telegram?).
- Generative mods hide or degrade swathes of the "Googlable" internet, which Meta has more resources to combat.
... That leaves Meta with a disturbing amount of world's social media marketshare.
I would be surprised if they would be allowed to. They never should have been permitted to buy Instagram, but I think regulators have woken up a bit since then.
Also, their whole ad-targetting business model, already damaged by iOS privacy settings, is increasingly looking like it might be illegal in the E.U.[0]. Oops.
[0] https://fortune.com/2023/07/04/meta-facebook-cjeu-privacy-co...
And the regulators are not going to let FB acquire any competitors.
IMHO only those already on FB and Insta will use Threads, since it's an easy jump, as they're already in the Meta ecosystem.