Here’s what’s going on with Twitter and Substack. Twitter has monopoly mindshare among elite media, and that’s a key part of the audience that Substack is trying to reach. Musk believes that Substack is a potential rival, so he’s trying to maintain his market power by preventing Substack users from accessing his platform and thus stunt Substack’s growth. This isn’t his first attempt to block interoperability - a few months ago he tried to block all access to possible rivals, before caving after public backlash.

There’s no sense in saying that Musk is undermining his own product, that’s not true. Twitter will remain dominant because it’s virtually impossible to collectively move social networks. He is however undermining the customers of both Substack and Twitter, as well as Substack itself.

I don’t think this is a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, because it would be too difficult to show that Twitter has market power. Judge Boasberg in the FTC’s case against Facebook said that a similar action - Zuckerberg killing Vine by not letting the service interoperate with Facebook - was legal. Boasberg is an obnoxious snob, but judges tend to follow each other’s interpretation of the law.

However, the Federal Trade Commission has a more expansive authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to define ‘unfair methods of competition’ that could potentially reach this behavior. What Musk is doing could be unlawful under that standard. I doubt a case would happen. If there were even an inkling of legal action, Musk would cave, as he has in the past.

Anyway, I’m mad.