Future Media | Ricky Sutton | Substack

Meta offers publishers a mobster's bargain - sell us AI or stay blocked

#443: Social's #1 bully has gone live on TV offering a dirty protection racket to reinstate news if they agree to feed its next big bet...

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A two-hour truth bomb just hit Meta, and OMG it didn't miss

Apr 11, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

The fearless editor leading an $8 billion fight against Google

Oct 27, 2024 • Ricky Sutton

Google's killer AI-steroid is targeting a news site near you

May 15, 2024 • Ricky Sutton

Ads led Meta to link 1.4 million kids with predators in a day

Feb 2 • Ricky Sutton and Nathan Witkin

Recent posts

Google antitrust enforcer's fired - now it's down to these guys

#443: Meet the trio tasked with deciding what Google must share - and with whom - after the shock firing of the DOJ's antitrust chief...

Feb 16 • Ricky Sutton

Snap’s rare profit comes with a teen-sized asterisk

#442: When Wall Street bailed up CEO Evan Spiegel for selling ads to teens, he said it wasn't material - but was that true?

Feb 11 • Ricky Sutton

Meta's $200 billion ad machine and the price we're all paying

#441: Meta keeps hitting milestones, but it now comes with the warning that youth-related trials may have a material impact...

Feb 10 • Ricky Sutton

The ad business hidden in Apple's top secret vault

#439: The best-selling author of Apple in China details how its rising ad ambitions are built on a tinderbox of trust, dependence and tension...

Feb 9 • Ricky Sutton

36:29

Apple's $1 trillion building China now risks a meteor strike

#440: Best-selling author and the FT's former Apple reporter explains why Taiwan tensions could plunge the entire world into a depression tomorrow...

Feb 9 • Ricky Sutton

Substack's rolled out recipes so I thought I'd give it a go

#438: Today, a cocktail of poisonous rhetoric with hints of hate and self-harm, sautéed over greed, and guaranteed to leave a bitter aftertaste. Can be…

Feb 4 • Ricky Sutton

52:37

Inside the incentives that drove Meta to endanger kids

#438: A landmark court case and latest financial filings strip back how harms were ignored in the drive for unrelenting shareholder growth...

Feb 2 • Ricky Sutton

Ads led Meta to link 1.4 million kids with predators in a day

#437: Social's record profits disguise a social tragedy, leading Australia and countries around the world to act on child harms...

Feb 2 • Ricky Sutton and Nathan Witkin

Tech monopolies are reshaping our existence in bad ways

#437: And a better future relies not only on adaptation, but on reclaiming the oxygen that keeps us all alive...

Jan 29 • Ricky Sutton

1:00:02

Denmark steps up to take tech to court to force AI deals

#439: It says it wants a fair exchange for Big Tech using publishers' content, and 99 per cent of the countries media is lined up behind it...

Jan 27 • Ricky Sutton and Chris Duncan

31:57

Siri sucks, so Apple had no choice but to do a deal on AI

#438: Apple is paying smartphone rival Google $1 billion to give Siri an AI brain transplant but what does it signal about the iPhone's future?

Jan 26 • Ricky Sutton and Stephen Nellis

Netflix’s ad threat and why it's buying backwards

#436: The streamer just posted monster ad numbers but now it's shopping for yesterday’s model to fuel tomorrow's growth...

Jan 26 • Ricky Sutton

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Google on Trial

Google antitrust enforcer's fired - now it's down to these guys

#443: Meet the trio tasked with deciding what Google must share - and with whom - after the shock firing of the DOJ's antitrust chief...

Feb 16 • Ricky Sutton

Mail, Gannett closer to payout as Google stunt backfires

#431: A high-stakes strategy to avoid a jury has gone awry, accelerating damages claims by two major publishers...

Jan 5 • Ricky Sutton

Publishers lack courage to quit Google without break-up

#420: The antitrust lawyers have been back in court. Google says it will fix ad tech if it's left alone. The DoJ says no-one trusts Google any more...

Nov 24, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Google wants its AI to get a free ride on Maps and YouTube

#394: The search giant argues the AI market is still forming and its rivals are bundling already, but the judge fears it could spawn a new monopoly...

Oct 10, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Even infinite monkeys couldn't write Google an appy ending

#392: Epic Games just beat Google again, with the Supreme Court denying its latest attempt to stall app-store reform...

Oct 7, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

AI Overviews

Is AI search reviving trust as the new ranking signal?

#432: Google is facing a US$198 billion ultimate innovator’s dilemma, leading Bauer’s Stuart Forrest to pose an AI future few have seen coming...

Jan 12 • Ricky Sutton and Stuart Forrest

46:46

How publishers can profit from privacy - DuckDuckGo

#408: Plus, The Daily Mail lands one on Google, Meta plunges on wild spending, Apple hits its first $100 billion quarter, and how to ride the creator…

Oct 31, 2025 • Ricky Sutton and Alan Chapell

Nine pointers for publishers to win the next decade

#406: Plus, Apple maps its ad future, Meta discovers it can help kids, Australia backs creators, TikTok's fined over data failures, and Chinese…

Oct 29, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

After a year of tech shifts, how about this as a big idea...

#403: Plus, OpenAI launches a browser, Netflix sinks on earnings, Apple laps Disney, RayBans soar on Meta vision, and three letters that unlocked AI...

Oct 22, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Dollars v Sense

55:09

Meta insiders break cover on Australia's under-16s ban

#428: Two former chiefs reveal that Zuck knows how young kids are but chooses growth over safety - and how Australia can reset the world...

Dec 15, 2025 • Ricky Sutton, Kelly Stonelake, and Brian Boland

1:04:17

AFP's AI chief shares how the global newsroom is adapting

#413: Sophie Huet reveals how she's retaining 1,700 heads, predicting news in 150 countries, and preparing for AIs to be her next customers...

Nov 9, 2025 • Ricky Sutton, Chris Duncan, and Sophie Huet

13:02

Social justice groups target OpenAI for "coaching suicide"

#412: Suit alleges OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman designed a product that manipulates users psychologically and contributed to four deaths...

Nov 9, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Meta's misogynistic culture puts kids at risk, warns insider

#345: A director who worked on Zuck's Metaverse claims execs treat perverts preying on kids as "a distraction from business goals"...

Jun 14, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Meta on trial

Meta headed back to court on antitrust after FTC appeal

Breaking news: Just 64 days after Zuck emerged victorious with his social network intact, America's regulators have launched an appeal...

Jan 20 • Ricky Sutton

Meta saved from break-up - and it can thank TikTok

#418: Zuck's handed the keys to double down on his social dominance and synthetic AI dream after defeating the FTC in its antitrust case...

Nov 18, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

7:15

Q: Where are we now with the Meta antitrust case?

#354: Meta has slunk off into the shadows now its high-profile antitrust case has ended. So where are we, and what's coming next?

Jul 9, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

4:57

Ex-Meta director begs former colleagues to halt child harm

#350: "I believed the leadership and internal propaganda about our ambitions and priorities and value. I feel tremendous guilt," she says.

Jun 26, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Meta's misogynistic culture puts kids at risk, warns insider

#345: A director who worked on Zuck's Metaverse claims execs treat perverts preying on kids as "a distraction from business goals"...

Jun 14, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Apple on Trial

12:01

Apple's perfect storm as profit, politics and privacy collide

#405: Apple's about to hit $4 trillion for the first time ever but it's far from cookies and cream inside its Oreo-shaped headquarters in Cupertino...

Oct 28, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

Publishers due millions as Oz rules app charges illegal

#365: Breaking: Judgement opens way for publishers to sell subs directly avoiding high fees and compensation going back years...

Aug 13, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

22:12

Apple’s app stranglehold is now a political flashpoint

#348: Competition lawyer Gene Burrus reveals a landmark event that put Cupertino on a collision course with the most powerful people on Earth...

Jun 23, 2025 • Ricky Sutton

47:23

We're at peak tech, and that's why Apple looks so rotten

Yeah yeah, no-one believes me but let me share some of the very real ways that you are being hurt by Cupertino's $363 billion juggernaut...

Aug 23, 2024 • Ricky Sutton

Apple shapeshifts to use privacy creds for profit - DoJ

Antitrust enforcers allege Apple wraps itself "in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct..."

Aug 21, 2024 • Ricky Sutton

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