5 ms·

They already have an order of magnitude more users than Mastodon has. It doesn't seem necessary for bootstrapping.

by jsnell 3y ago

phailhaus 3y ago
Two orders of magnitude. Mastodon is sitting at around 1.5M users, while Threads already has 100M. They really don't need Mastodon at all.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  > Mastodon is sitting at around 1.5M users, I've seen a stat of over 13m users: https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
Let's be honest about what Threads has. 1. A lot of Instagram users who had an extremely low barrier to entry, which could mean a low intention to post. 2. Little organic content. 3. Influencers and bots wanting to be "First!". 4. The people hyping it are almost exclusively using it to hate on Musk. Not Twitter, but Musk. Very few people are actually excited about giving Meta more data. I don't user any of this garbage so I don't know or care. But I think it's entirely reasonable to acknowledge that the people on Mastadon want to post and use it, and that bots basically have no interest. It's small, but actually organic content.
- tgv 3y ago
  Let's be honest about what Mastodon has: a puny bit of rather nerdy content, most of it available elsewhere. Threads does not need it. May the two worlds stay separated forever.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    Yes, but it's real. Which is something that is far more valuable than what exists on the rest of social medias today.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      [dead]
- dylan604 3y ago
  >and that bots basically have no interest. This is just simple minded thinking. Of course a bot doesn't care, but it's owners absolutely do care. If you think bots will not infect Mastodon, you're seriously limiting your critical thinking skills.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    Wait, did you think I was writing that the programs care? I'm sorry, I didn't think that was a distinction that needed to be made.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
devjab 3y ago
They have a lot of users, but do they have a lot of interesting people? Being from Europe threads is not a thing for me, but my “SoMe network” is pretty solid on Mastodon. Most of the people I want to read “tweets” from left Twitter sometime last year, well, many are now both on Twitter and Mastodon. Anyway, despite its tiny user bass compared to Twitter, almost every single person or organisation that I followed on Twitter is on Mastodon, and while that’s anecdotal, I do think that the users Meta cares about aren’t necessarily those 70 million. I suspect it’s a tough balancing act. One where you need the interesting accounts as well as the masses, because you can’t have the masses without interesting things and you can’t have advertisement revenue without the masses. I don’t actually think Threads has too much to worry about from Mastodon. Personally I think something “better” is needed before we get any real Twitter replacement, but I can see why Meta would want to keep the door open. So that if they can’t get the “interesting” accounts to join, they can still get the content from those accounts by linking up to Mastodon. Well, that or maybe Meta is actually gearing up to become the SoMe that doesn’t lock its platforms down. The EU is likely not going to stop by forcing messaging apps to speak with each other after all, and there is obviously a lot of value in being the “phone book” of the world.
- jsnell 3y ago
  Sure, I can totally believe that Threads is a dystopian wasteland of vapid influencer "content" and no content of interest. But if the theory is that you need Mastodon to bring in the interesting content because their 100M userbase can't or won't produce that content, the federation would be needed indefinitely. It won't be that federating with Mastodon for a year bootstraps their own content production. If people writing interesting things aren't willing to go to a platform with 100M users now, they won't be willing to do it in an year either.
  - camjohnson26 3y ago
    Maybe 2% of my Twitter follows moved to Mastodon. I’ve seen about 50% on Threads.

They already have an order of magnitude more users than Mastodon has. It doesn't seem necessary for bootstrapping.

by jsnell 3y ago

They already have an order of magnitude more users than Mastodon has. It doesn't seem necessary for bootstrapping.

Two orders of magnitude. Mastodon is sitting at around 1.5M users, while Threads already has 100M. They really don't need Mastodon at all.

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
> Mastodon is sitting at around 1.5M users, I've seen a stat of over 13m users: https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

Let's be honest about what Threads has. 1. A lot of Instagram users who had an extremely low barrier to entry, which could mean a low intention to post. 2. Little organic content. 3. Influencers and bots wanting to be "First!". 4. The people hyping it are almost exclusively using it to hate on Musk. Not Twitter, but Musk. Very few people are actually excited about giving Meta more data. I don't user any of this garbage so I don't know or care. But I think it's entirely reasonable to acknowledge that the people on Mastadon want to post and use it, and that bots basically have no interest. It's small, but actually organic content.

tgv 3y ago
Let's be honest about what Mastodon has: a puny bit of rather nerdy content, most of it available elsewhere. Threads does not need it. May the two worlds stay separated forever.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Yes, but it's real. Which is something that is far more valuable than what exists on the rest of social medias today.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    [dead]
dylan604 3y ago
>and that bots basically have no interest. This is just simple minded thinking. Of course a bot doesn't care, but it's owners absolutely do care. If you think bots will not infect Mastodon, you're seriously limiting your critical thinking skills.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Wait, did you think I was writing that the programs care? I'm sorry, I didn't think that was a distinction that needed to be made.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

devjab 3y ago

They have a lot of users, but do they have a lot of interesting people? Being from Europe threads is not a thing for me, but my “SoMe network” is pretty solid on Mastodon. Most of the people I want to read “tweets” from left Twitter sometime last year, well, many are now both on Twitter and Mastodon. Anyway, despite its tiny user bass compared to Twitter, almost every single person or organisation that I followed on Twitter is on Mastodon, and while that’s anecdotal, I do think that the users Meta cares about aren’t necessarily those 70 million. I suspect it’s a tough balancing act. One where you need the interesting accounts as well as the masses, because you can’t have the masses without interesting things and you can’t have advertisement revenue without the masses. I don’t actually think Threads has too much to worry about from Mastodon. Personally I think something “better” is needed before we get any real Twitter replacement, but I can see why Meta would want to keep the door open. So that if they can’t get the “interesting” accounts to join, they can still get the content from those accounts by linking up to Mastodon. Well, that or maybe Meta is actually gearing up to become the SoMe that doesn’t lock its platforms down. The EU is likely not going to stop by forcing messaging apps to speak with each other after all, and there is obviously a lot of value in being the “phone book” of the world.

jsnell 3y ago
Sure, I can totally believe that Threads is a dystopian wasteland of vapid influencer "content" and no content of interest. But if the theory is that you need Mastodon to bring in the interesting content because their 100M userbase can't or won't produce that content, the federation would be needed indefinitely. It won't be that federating with Mastodon for a year bootstraps their own content production. If people writing interesting things aren't willing to go to a platform with 100M users now, they won't be willing to do it in an year either.
- camjohnson26 3y ago
  Maybe 2% of my Twitter follows moved to Mastodon. I’ve seen about 50% on Threads.