4 ms·

I don't think Zuck is that clever or ahead of the curve. He built a giant social network that had guard rails, ie fill in the profile, rather than build the web

I don't think Zuck is that clever or ahead of the curve. He built a giant social network that had guard rails, ie fill in the profile, rather than build the website (myspace). And as a consequence has ridden first mover advantage for the last 20 years. If Facebook hadn't been able to acquire Instagram or WhatsApp the internet of today would look totally different. Facebook got lucky because regulators in the US were asleep at the wheel. Anyway, facebook is a dark forest. Threads may have 70M new users but it's got instagrams TOS (no fun) and it's not prioritizing news. Journalists will come quickly and then leave because content will happen elsewhere. Maybe twitter will outlive musk. Maybe.

PaulHoule 3y ago
I'd describe the acquisitions as a strategy to keep on top, particularly when they have the advertising machine to turn audiences into gold. What I don't understand is how funding for new social media startups has collapsed so completely in the U.S. Insofar as Facebook would buy (or want to buy) any potential competitor that seems like a pretty good exit plan. Today there is more concern that the government would get in the way but I think the funding collapsed happened before anti-trust got fashionable again. I think you're right that Threads won't appeal to journalists like the way Mastodon is not appealing to journalists but particularly Facebook deciding news is not great for business since news organizations are demanding to get paid and news is provocative and inflammatory (who wants to put an ad next to a video of a little bomb dropping out of a drone on someones head or next to somebody getting viciously dogpiled?)