Coachella’s Layaway Plan, Tubi’s Long Game , Lucian Grainge’s Legacy

Today’s memo is about an episode we dropped over the weekend. I recorded a mailbag episode and talked about a bunch of topics: Coachella’s payment plan, Tubi’s long game, Lucian Grainge’s tenure at UMG, Meta vs FTC, and how we use AI at Trapital.

You can listen to the full episode here or read below for my thoughts on the Meta and what’s next.

Social Media Competition: Similar But Different

I read through Meta's presentation last week to the FTC. It’s a high-stakes battle that could shape the future of big tech and social media. Meta’s pitch was clear: we are not a monopoly, you're singling us out, look at our competitors, even the ones you don't "think" are competitors!

There’s a lot to unpack there, but I keep going back to this slide:

These eight products have near-identical features, which isn’t a surprise. Their goal is to keep your attention, which leads to similarities of providing enough engaging content that’s worthy of an endless scroll to keep you hooked. If your social media platform doesn’t have video, you may lose users to a platform that does.

But despite the similarities, each product is still used quite differently! This is largely driven by two reasons: business models and consumer behavior.

For instance, LinkedIn has grown its advertising business tremendously and has invested heavily in creators sharing their own stories. But it still makes most of its money by serving recruiters and salespeople, which incentivizes a lot of the cringe-worthy content on the platform. My friend Trung Phan did a great breakdown on this. That model sets LinkedIn apart from the rest and also shapes the consumer behavior on the app. It likely won't be long until LinkedIn videos start to look like the type of video designed to attract and retain both recruiters and sales executives.

Meanwhile, TikTok has clearly been the catalyst for every competitor's video feed over the past five years. It's one reason why Instagram is considering spinning off Reels into its own app. But consumer behavior with short-form video is so strong that it's tough for other products to breathe.

TikTok Music came and went. It was a surprise to those who assumed that TikTok's "top of funnel" role in music streaming would automatically make it a threat if it launched a music streaming service. But it wasn't a surprise to those who understand both consumer behavior and on-demand media streaming.

Here’s what I wrote in Trapital in August 2022, two years before TikTok Music shut down in September 2024:

“TikTok Music: TikTok already has the interest of both artists and record labels, but digital music streaming services need consumer buy-in as well. Streaming requires active participation from users. Most people don’t passively scroll Spotify the way they do with TikTok. The better comparison may be YouTube, which relies more on ad-supported revenue than the other streaming platforms.

Likelihood of success: LOW if it tries to compete with Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music, but MEDIUM if it goes the YouTube route.”

Despite TikTok's struggles in on-demand streaming, I do think that TikTok Shop is a product that's much more aligned with what TikTok does well. It provides an ideal channel for brands looking to advertise, partner, and push their products onto consumers. It complements TikTok's core strengths in capturing and maintaining user attention.

Meta's FTC slide deck was a good read, even if I don't agree with everything. For instance, to say that the company "never degraded quality below a competitive level" seems to ignore the gradual degradation of user experience on Facebook and Instagram over the years. But I'll continue to track this case. Depending on the legal outcome, it could establish crucial precedents for how all products that capture our attention are regulated going forward.

Make sure you listen to the rest of our episode for the other topics we covered:

- Coachella's payment plan debate
- Tubi's long game under Fox
- Evaluating Lucian Grainge's tenure as UMG CEO
- How we use AI at Trapital

Listen here:​​ Spotify​​ | ​​Apple Podcasts​​ | Overcast

Chartmetric Stat of the Week - Hamilton

I often check the Billboard album charts to see which older albums have staying power. I was surprised to see the Hamilton soundtrack, which has been a top 50 album in the U.S. for a couple of months now. I learned that the album was recently inducted into the National Recording Registry, and was swept up in the Kennedy Center cancellation controversy. Both of those are likely factors!