4 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads? The app is vapid, boring and destined to fail

14 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

ggeorgovassilis 3y ago
It's not about the app, it's about the community. Twitter is the only mainstream social medium where I can discuss and learn about politics, technology and science (like, follow the actual scientists who discuss their research and papers).
- cactusplant7374 3y ago
  Threads is changing things. Those same people will want to be on Threads.
- Pxtl 3y ago
  That happens on twitter because those people are on twitter. That's a deep moat but it's draining away. Those people are getting tired of bluechecks accusing them of pedophilia and are looking for an exit, and Threads is providing one.
  - cactusplant7374 3y ago
    They also tell them that they must listen to them otherwise they don't believe in free speech or that they are stifling debate. It's ludicrous. Everyone has the right not to engage. People are tired. They want access to the latest information but are less interested in the debate club aspect.
    - tsuujin 3y ago
      I’d be interested in a debate club, but social media has yet to provide me with one. Debates really require a good faith attempt to assert and defend a position, where social media swings heavily towards a popularity contest where the loudest voice wielding the most emotionally charged rhetoric wins. I know it sounds like I’m just being pedantic, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that few people are actually interested in genuine discourse online. I have to remind myself of that so that I don’t get tempted into pointless arguments.
2Gkashmiri 3y ago
this. "boring". why do these so-called tech journalists use such terminologies? what has the app architecture to do with it being "boring" or not. These same people go on to describe the "culture" of an app, between mastodon/activitypub and nostr and bluesky and now threads and twitter and facebook and tikok as if the creators of the app themselves have an influence on the actual app? case in point. recently when lemmy kinda blew up, i saw HN posters and many on reddit saying "oh well stay away, the devs are fascists and pro genocide" to a point the dev had to publicly deny those accusations. My question is, what has personal opinions of a dev of an agpl licensed software going to influence the third party use of a a server that is in the hands of their admins? same for mastodon and nostr and fediverse. pleroma is written off as a "anime garbage" while in reality it is a lightweight alternative to mastodon so what gives? how is threads different from instagram when the exact same people use it? twitter users are the same users and they too use it so how is the "app" boring? what makes twitter boring? tomorrow if zuck comes out as a holocaust denier for example, is everyone in the US going to uninstall instagram and facebook and whatsapp?
catchnear4321 3y ago
> If you felt like having an argument or just learning the latest thing about the latest thing, Twitter was a good way to do those things. the author liked to use twitter to look for punching bags, admits it, and then tries to soften it with a half-hearted “and education.” will this cause a period of introspection and growth? no, the billionaires are to blame.
sf4lifer 3y ago
Threads is Times Square (NYC). Twitter is Union Square (SF).
- Pxtl 3y ago
  Notable about this analogy: I'm not an American, much less a west-coast American... and I've never heard of Union Square in SF.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
Right from the headline you can tell this is going to be one very opinionated and very ignorant hot take.
bell-cot 3y ago
I'm for-sure not a fan of Zuck - but from the first 2 words of this article's title, I can tell all that I need to know about the author's PoV, objectivity, and priorities.
Pxtl 3y ago
This whole article assumes that Threads as-launched is where it will stay. No thread-search, no pure-follows feed, etc. Obviously it was launched immature because Twitter was imploding at the time. I think people will be surprised how fast a fresh, clean product with a shiny new codebase and a "move fast and break things" ideology can iterate. Yes, if Threads stays as-is, it will remain vapid and lose the many people who've jumped onboard looking for an alternative to Musk's mess. The algorithmic feed full of milquetoast celebrity bon mots is aggressively mediocre. But it's reached the critical mass of users it needs to be viable, and as long as they can deliver on their promised features in time it will give Twitter a serious run for its money. I'm just disappointed how slow Mastodon has been to learn all that.

14 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

It's not about the app, it's about the community. Twitter is the only mainstream social medium where I can discuss and learn about politics, technology and science (like, follow the actual scientists who discuss their research and papers).

cactusplant7374 3y ago
Threads is changing things. Those same people will want to be on Threads.
Pxtl 3y ago
That happens on twitter because those people are on twitter. That's a deep moat but it's draining away. Those people are getting tired of bluechecks accusing them of pedophilia and are looking for an exit, and Threads is providing one.
- cactusplant7374 3y ago
  They also tell them that they must listen to them otherwise they don't believe in free speech or that they are stifling debate. It's ludicrous. Everyone has the right not to engage. People are tired. They want access to the latest information but are less interested in the debate club aspect.
  - tsuujin 3y ago
    I’d be interested in a debate club, but social media has yet to provide me with one. Debates really require a good faith attempt to assert and defend a position, where social media swings heavily towards a popularity contest where the loudest voice wielding the most emotionally charged rhetoric wins. I know it sounds like I’m just being pedantic, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that few people are actually interested in genuine discourse online. I have to remind myself of that so that I don’t get tempted into pointless arguments.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago

this. "boring". why do these so-called tech journalists use such terminologies? what has the app architecture to do with it being "boring" or not. These same people go on to describe the "culture" of an app, between mastodon/activitypub and nostr and bluesky and now threads and twitter and facebook and tikok as if the creators of the app themselves have an influence on the actual app? case in point. recently when lemmy kinda blew up, i saw HN posters and many on reddit saying "oh well stay away, the devs are fascists and pro genocide" to a point the dev had to publicly deny those accusations. My question is, what has personal opinions of a dev of an agpl licensed software going to influence the third party use of a a server that is in the hands of their admins? same for mastodon and nostr and fediverse. pleroma is written off as a "anime garbage" while in reality it is a lightweight alternative to mastodon so what gives? how is threads different from instagram when the exact same people use it? twitter users are the same users and they too use it so how is the "app" boring? what makes twitter boring? tomorrow if zuck comes out as a holocaust denier for example, is everyone in the US going to uninstall instagram and facebook and whatsapp?

catchnear4321 3y ago

> If you felt like having an argument or just learning the latest thing about the latest thing, Twitter was a good way to do those things. the author liked to use twitter to look for punching bags, admits it, and then tries to soften it with a half-hearted “and education.” will this cause a period of introspection and growth? no, the billionaires are to blame.

sf4lifer 3y ago

Threads is Times Square (NYC). Twitter is Union Square (SF).

Pxtl 3y ago
Notable about this analogy: I'm not an American, much less a west-coast American... and I've never heard of Union Square in SF.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

Right from the headline you can tell this is going to be one very opinionated and very ignorant hot take.

bell-cot 3y ago

I'm for-sure not a fan of Zuck - but from the first 2 words of this article's title, I can tell all that I need to know about the author's PoV, objectivity, and priorities.

Pxtl 3y ago

This whole article assumes that Threads as-launched is where it will stay. No thread-search, no pure-follows feed, etc. Obviously it was launched immature because Twitter was imploding at the time. I think people will be surprised how fast a fresh, clean product with a shiny new codebase and a "move fast and break things" ideology can iterate. Yes, if Threads stays as-is, it will remain vapid and lose the many people who've jumped onboard looking for an alternative to Musk's mess. The algorithmic feed full of milquetoast celebrity bon mots is aggressively mediocre. But it's reached the critical mass of users it needs to be viable, and as long as they can deliver on their promised features in time it will give Twitter a serious run for its money. I'm just disappointed how slow Mastodon has been to learn all that.