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The notion that the retention curve for users on Threads is going to be a steady up and to the right line is such a pedestrian take. Any and every product that

by kbos87 3y ago

The notion that the retention curve for users on Threads is going to be a steady up and to the right line is such a pedestrian take. Any and every product that sees a massive surge of media-driven signups is then going to see a dramatic dip, then (hopefully) a new normal of usage. The more dramatic the initial surge in signups, the more dramatic the drop-off will be. This pattern tells us very little about the strength of the product and it's going to be months not days before there's anything meaningful for us to say about its ability to retain users.

rsynnott 3y ago
The media is very odd with this; pretty much _every_ time a low-impedance free service launches and retention numbers are available, the media reporting is pretty much "shock, horror, they only have X% weekly/monthly/whatever retention, they are surely doomed", even if X is really rather high for such a service (as it is in the Threads case). I think people find these stats quite unintuitive.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- izacus 3y ago
  It's not just for services, remember when they tolled doom and gloom for laptop sales after they returned to normal growth curve after 2022? There were separate articles for growth (for each brand, Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc.) and then for the fall back to normal (again, one article for each brand). So many clicks were farmed.
asadotzler 3y ago
I don't know about that. When we launched Firefox 1.0 and sprinted to 100 million users, we didn't see our user base fall in half, ever, it simply slowed it's growth trajectory some until about 300 million users. It held that for some years and then began declining. There is zero reason a great product will necessarily fall to earth after a big launch. You're just making things up to suit your narrative here.
- kbos87 3y ago
  Surely we can agree that the growth of a key utility in the early 2000s is pretty different from the growth of an entertainment app in 2023. The poor quality of users acquired through a moment like the one that Threads just had is pretty well understood.

by kbos87 3y ago

rsynnott 3y ago

The media is very odd with this; pretty much _every_ time a low-impedance free service launches and retention numbers are available, the media reporting is pretty much "shock, horror, they only have X% weekly/monthly/whatever retention, they are surely doomed", even if X is really rather high for such a service (as it is in the Threads case). I think people find these stats quite unintuitive.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
izacus 3y ago
It's not just for services, remember when they tolled doom and gloom for laptop sales after they returned to normal growth curve after 2022? There were separate articles for growth (for each brand, Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc.) and then for the fall back to normal (again, one article for each brand). So many clicks were farmed.

asadotzler 3y ago

I don't know about that. When we launched Firefox 1.0 and sprinted to 100 million users, we didn't see our user base fall in half, ever, it simply slowed it's growth trajectory some until about 300 million users. It held that for some years and then began declining. There is zero reason a great product will necessarily fall to earth after a big launch. You're just making things up to suit your narrative here.

kbos87 3y ago
Surely we can agree that the growth of a key utility in the early 2000s is pretty different from the growth of an entertainment app in 2023. The poor quality of users acquired through a moment like the one that Threads just had is pretty well understood.