#1318: Why Fitness App Developer Andre Elijah is Suing Meta for Alleged Anti-Competitive Behaviors

On October 10, 2023 Andre Elijah Immersive filed a $353 million dollar lawsuit against Meta Platforms Technologies and Alo LLC (PDF & Exhibits via UploadVR) claiming both a breach of contract for how Meta terminated a fitness application that it was funding, but also for a broader pattern of anti-competitive behaviors and Sherman Act violations. Elijah is claiming that Meta is giving preference to their own first-party fitness application of Supernatural after the FTC failed to block the acquisition of Within in February 2023. Elijah says that Meta was hedging their bets in the fitness space by investing in other XR apps by taking an ownership stake in different XR projects like the yoga and pilates mixed reality fitness app that he was developing in collaboration Alo LLC. But after the Within sale finally went through, then Elijah claims that Meta found a way to kill off his app in way that breached their contract and represented a broader pattern of anti-competitive practices. The US Federal Trade Commissions (FTC) attempted to sue Meta for alleged anti-competitive behaviors of their 2012 Instagram acquisition, but it was 8 years after the fact in 2020. At the time were a number of indie VR developers who were claiming that Meta was still deploying different anti-competitive practices in how the VR ecosystem was developing. This included BigScreenVR's Darshan Shankar claiming that Meta was preventing his business model of movie screenings in VR while at the same time not preventing their own potential aspirations to do the same. Guy Goodin was forced to remove SteamVR streaming features from his Virtual Desktop application when Meta was working on their own competing product, and Cix Liv claimed that Meta was blocking his application from the app store when Meta had a competing first-party application. Then Meta changed their name from Facebook, and then a day later Meta announced they were acquiring popular fitness application Supernatural made by Within. Then the FTC announced on July 27, 2022 that they're seeking to "Block Virtual Reality Giant Meta’s Acquisition of Popular App Creator Within." It wasn't until February 1, 2023 that Bloomberg reported that "US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, denied the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction to block the proposed transaction." This cleared the way for the Within acquisition to finally go through, and this sets the broader context for Elijah's interactions with Meta in the context of the fitness application space. I had a chance to sit down with Elijah to get a bit more context for what happened, why he believes that Meta is at a minimum in breach of their contract, but also why he's invoking the Sherman Act and alleging some deeper patterns of anti-competitive behaviors. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality