According to Techmeme, Meta is testing a new policy that limits Facebook professional accounts and Pages to posting a maximum of two links per month, unless the account holder subscribes to Meta Verified, which starts at $14.99 per month. In separate but significant media industry news, analysts and reporters are declaring the potential merger between Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Paramount as effectively dead. Key voices like Alex Sherman suggest WBD’s real position is a refusal to sell to anyone but the Ellison family, citing broken trust and an inflated price. The chatter points to Larry Ellison being unwilling to fully bankroll a ~$40 billion deal for his son, David Ellison, to run a major studio. The prevailing prediction is now that Warner Bros. will be acquired by Netflix by the summer of 2027.
Meta’s Squeeze Play
This test is a fascinating, aggressive move. Meta’s basically putting a hard cap on one of the core utilities of a business Page: driving traffic elsewhere. Two links a month is nothing. It forces a choice: pay to play, or lose a fundamental channel. The logic is clear—they want to monetize business usage more directly and maybe keep users scrolling in-app instead of clicking away. But it’s a risky gambit. For small businesses, artists, or news outlets relying on organic reach, this could be the final nudge to abandon the platform entirely. It turns Facebook from a potential free marketing tool into just another bill. Will the subscription revenue outweigh the en-migration of professional users? That’s the billion-dollar question they’re testing.
The Paramount Deal Is Dead
So the media merger saga appears to be over, at least this chapter. Reading between the lines from Sherman and others like Peter Kafka, the trust between the WBD and Paramount boards is shattered. The price was always a fantasy. Here’s the thing: Larry Ellison might back his son’s ambitions, but he’s not a charity. Spending $40 billion to put David Ellison in charge of a combined media titan, when Skydance’s experience is primarily as a co-financier, is a staggering risk. The “unproven” tag is the killer. So the conversation has decisively shifted, as noted by David Poland, from “will they merge?” to “who buys WBD next?”
Netflix As The Endgame
The boldest take in all this is Sherman’s prediction: Netflix owns Warner Bros. by 2027. That’s a mind-bender. Netflix, the company that made “studio” a dirty word for a decade, potentially swallowing one of the legacy giants. But it makes a brutal kind of sense. Netflix needs durable, deep IP libraries and proven production muscle more than ever as growth plateaus. Warner Bros. brings Batman, Harry Potter, HBO’s prestige, and a century of film history. By 2027, if WBD is still struggling under its debt load and linear TV decline, it could be a forced seller. Netflix, with its market cap and cash flow, could be one of the few logical buyers left. It would be the ultimate full-circle moment for the industry.
A Shifting Digital Landscape
Look at these stories together. On one side, a social media giant is walling off its garden, demanding tolls for basic web functions. On the other, old media empires are failing to consolidate their way to safety, with everyone speculating about a tech-native streamer as the end boss. The common thread is the relentless pressure on traditional models. Whether it’s free link-sharing or the classic studio system, the economics are being upended. Platforms want direct revenue from business users, and content giants need scale they can’t achieve alone. The next few years won’t be about gentle evolution. They’ll be about forced choices, broken deals, and maybe, a complete re-drawing of the map.
