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Too late, IMO. The invite-only system meant that the "leave Twitter" crowd split between Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. IMO none of them have ended up being gre

Too late, IMO. The invite-only system meant that the "leave Twitter" crowd split between Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. IMO none of them have ended up being great replacements.

dt3ft 3y ago
Judging by the traffic traces (number of comments on popular posts), I’d have to agree.
soperj 3y ago
Does anyone actually use threads? Everyone seemed to go check it out, but I don't know anyone actively using it.
- addicted 3y ago
  Threads has picked up quite a bit of steam in a lot of communities recently. Not sure how widespread it is but it seems to be doing fairly well.
- vitorgrs 3y ago
  It has like, 30x more users than Mastodon lol For now, it's the most viable alternative for Twitter - for now. But this is in part because Mastodon UX is very complicated for beginners, and BlueSky is slow as hell to make improvements. It still doesn't support sending videos...
  - Zak 3y ago
    I'm really curious as to what will happen when Threads turns on ActivityPub federation for everyone. At that point, Threads and Mastodon will be the same network, aside from servers that have preemptively blocked Threads.
- threeseed 3y ago
  There are well over 100m MAU so a lot of people are using it. And it has reached the #1 position in most of the App Stores around the world.
  - MarcusE1W 3y ago
    I heard before that Threads is the number one in app stores. If I look right now (23.12) in the Apple App Store then I can’t find it at all in the top 200 (unless I missed something). I see X on 165 and Telegram for example, but no Threads. Is it really no. 1 or nearby on Android ?
    - soperj 3y ago
      I don't see it in the top 200 on Android.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- baby 3y ago
  Some people I know use it. I use it from times to times but the crypto community hasn’t really been active there. My guess is that if you have a big instagram following then Threads make a lot of sense.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  Threads has ~100 million monthly active users according to Zuck, while Musk claims ~550 million. So if you believe that it's fair to say that "people actually use Mastodon" (which has 1.5 million MAUs), then yes — people actually use Threads.
- leviathant 3y ago
  Whenever I revisit Threads, it feels like I'm in the tourist trap of social networks. Celebrities and brands are pushed into my feed, posting vacuous engagement traps. I felt like I had discoverability issues with Mastodon, and the culture I kept running into there was abrasive. It's all around much better now than it was years ago, and I do seem to get more engagement from strangers than on any of the other networks, but I struggled to stay interested. Bluesky reminded me of the kind of slower organic growth that you'd typically find in earlier internet communities. The absence of videos and GIFs is, for me, an enormous positive point that I know will eventually give way to popular demand. I like that it's more text-and-images focused, and it seems to be in my sweet spot in terms of... most of what I see feel like thoughtful posts and replies, and not people nakedly building their personal brand. None of them are going to have the same social cachet as Twitter. It's pretty incredible to see someone spend billions of dollars to completely squander an ecosystem an internationally recognizable brand like that. A fairly unique resource, obliterated by a man-baby with absolutely no concept of the value of the people on the platform he bought.
colordrops 3y ago
I've seen many products loose steam due to invite only. It's a failure to recognize heavy public interest and strike while the iron is hot.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
CharlesW 3y ago
Threads has been that for me, but of course YMMV depending on the topics you like to follow. If you haven't tried tools like ThreadLink, Threads Sync, etc. lately, you might be surprised.
tptacek 3y ago
What does "too late" mean? I don't like Bluesky; it feels cliquish and insubstantial to me, and I do most of my Twitter-type writing on Mastodon now. But what am I losing by not writing on Twitter? I've been saying this for several months now, but the vibe I get from the current "fragmented" social media situation is of a reversion back to something like the heyday of Google Reader and the "blogosphere". Like: I need multiple browser tabs to keep track of everything?That's fine? It's better than when everything was crammed into a single site, with a single set of affordances nobody really liked.
- guerrilla 3y ago
  Can you tell me more about how you see your practice of posting as writing? I don't hear many people talk sbout it like that. Also, what's your goal with it?
- afavour 3y ago
  I agree that Twitter was a weird amalgamation of different people who wanted to use the site for different things… but for me that’s one of the things that made it compelling. I get to read a person’s musing on JavaScript frameworks and also see pictures of their dog and see them react in real time to a World Cup game. IMO Twitter was a very compelling place to be during a breaking news event (and I don’t just mean political news, could be cultural, sports etc) and none of the alternatives have replicated that yet. Mastodon is maybe not even technically capable of it (because federation introduces a delay in message delivery). I do enjoy niche discussions on Mastodon but once you’ve removed time as an influential factor for importance the default chronological view doesn’t feel anywhere near as to me.
add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
I think the point was controlled growth and community quality, not to capture Twitter's eternal September. Let them go to Threads.
baby 3y ago
Threads actually is pretty nice o.o
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
It's so dumb. Someone please explain how a social network is supposed to succeed when it's invite-only? Hype alone won't carry it. IMO, being invite-only is THE reason Google+ failed. There were so many memes about people getting excited for an invite, getting on, and then finding only a couple people they knew were on it, if any at all. For a social network to work, it needs to be a network. Limiting on-boarding eliminates the network, and so people lose interest fast.
- fliggertiggy 3y ago
  I think it's supposed to create a feeling of scarcity or exclusivity and make people perceive the network as more valuable.
  - dymk 3y ago
    No, it's because their servers would fall over if it was public registration, and they wouldn't be able to keep up with moderation
- haswell 3y ago
  > Someone please explain how a social network is supposed to succeed when it's invite-only? Hype alone won't carry it. It may be that the industry has evolved to a degree that this is no longer viable (I also don’t know if I believe this…), but invite-only or otherwise limited launches formed the backbone of the current web. Facebook was only available if you had a school address. Gmail was only available via invite. Obviously a service can’t stay in a limited state forever and the hype will run out, but it’s not exactly a new approach to limiting access early in the life of a service. Google+ failed because Google killed it. I never experienced what you describe, but admittedly got an invite very early, and interacted with people who had also gotten the same thing. Limiting onboarding does not eliminate the network. It just limits it. Again, to your point, this can’t last forever, but is not by itself the issue as long as they continue to scale up access. There are plenty of other issues that will make or break a network.
  - zappb 3y ago
kzrdude 3y ago
I think bluesky has mindshare and is still ready to be the eventual twitter heir
- edavis 3y ago
  Bluesky seems to be the "backup" for a lot of Twitter users. When Twitter had their outage a day or two ago the network activity spiked to some of the highest levels seen since like October.
mullingitover 3y ago
Part of me thinks that's the point, I don't believe Jack set out to make something that could be a meaningful threat to twitter. It seems like it's meant to be just big enough to suck the oxygen out of the room for other twitter alternatives. (Obviously that failed, now that threads is topping download charts and twitter is sitting in the 40s.) The man has enough access to capital and can easily hire folks with the know-how to make a service that can scale. That fact that this hasn't happened says something.

Too late, IMO. The invite-only system meant that the "leave Twitter" crowd split between Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. IMO none of them have ended up being great replacements.

dt3ft 3y ago

Judging by the traffic traces (number of comments on popular posts), I’d have to agree.

soperj 3y ago

Does anyone actually use threads? Everyone seemed to go check it out, but I don't know anyone actively using it.

addicted 3y ago
Threads has picked up quite a bit of steam in a lot of communities recently. Not sure how widespread it is but it seems to be doing fairly well.
vitorgrs 3y ago
It has like, 30x more users than Mastodon lol For now, it's the most viable alternative for Twitter - for now. But this is in part because Mastodon UX is very complicated for beginners, and BlueSky is slow as hell to make improvements. It still doesn't support sending videos...
- Zak 3y ago
  I'm really curious as to what will happen when Threads turns on ActivityPub federation for everyone. At that point, Threads and Mastodon will be the same network, aside from servers that have preemptively blocked Threads.
threeseed 3y ago
There are well over 100m MAU so a lot of people are using it. And it has reached the #1 position in most of the App Stores around the world.
- MarcusE1W 3y ago
  I heard before that Threads is the number one in app stores. If I look right now (23.12) in the Apple App Store then I can’t find it at all in the top 200 (unless I missed something). I see X on 165 and Telegram for example, but no Threads. Is it really no. 1 or nearby on Android ?
  - soperj 3y ago
    I don't see it in the top 200 on Android.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
baby 3y ago
Some people I know use it. I use it from times to times but the crypto community hasn’t really been active there. My guess is that if you have a big instagram following then Threads make a lot of sense.
CharlesW 3y ago
Threads has ~100 million monthly active users according to Zuck, while Musk claims ~550 million. So if you believe that it's fair to say that "people actually use Mastodon" (which has 1.5 million MAUs), then yes — people actually use Threads.
leviathant 3y ago
Whenever I revisit Threads, it feels like I'm in the tourist trap of social networks. Celebrities and brands are pushed into my feed, posting vacuous engagement traps. I felt like I had discoverability issues with Mastodon, and the culture I kept running into there was abrasive. It's all around much better now than it was years ago, and I do seem to get more engagement from strangers than on any of the other networks, but I struggled to stay interested. Bluesky reminded me of the kind of slower organic growth that you'd typically find in earlier internet communities. The absence of videos and GIFs is, for me, an enormous positive point that I know will eventually give way to popular demand. I like that it's more text-and-images focused, and it seems to be in my sweet spot in terms of... most of what I see feel like thoughtful posts and replies, and not people nakedly building their personal brand. None of them are going to have the same social cachet as Twitter. It's pretty incredible to see someone spend billions of dollars to completely squander an ecosystem an internationally recognizable brand like that. A fairly unique resource, obliterated by a man-baby with absolutely no concept of the value of the people on the platform he bought.

colordrops 3y ago

I've seen many products loose steam due to invite only. It's a failure to recognize heavy public interest and strike while the iron is hot.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

CharlesW 3y ago

Threads has been that for me, but of course YMMV depending on the topics you like to follow. If you haven't tried tools like ThreadLink, Threads Sync, etc. lately, you might be surprised.

tptacek 3y ago

What does "too late" mean? I don't like Bluesky; it feels cliquish and insubstantial to me, and I do most of my Twitter-type writing on Mastodon now. But what am I losing by not writing on Twitter? I've been saying this for several months now, but the vibe I get from the current "fragmented" social media situation is of a reversion back to something like the heyday of Google Reader and the "blogosphere". Like: I need multiple browser tabs to keep track of everything?That's fine? It's better than when everything was crammed into a single site, with a single set of affordances nobody really liked.

guerrilla 3y ago
Can you tell me more about how you see your practice of posting as writing? I don't hear many people talk sbout it like that. Also, what's your goal with it?
afavour 3y ago
I agree that Twitter was a weird amalgamation of different people who wanted to use the site for different things… but for me that’s one of the things that made it compelling. I get to read a person’s musing on JavaScript frameworks and also see pictures of their dog and see them react in real time to a World Cup game. IMO Twitter was a very compelling place to be during a breaking news event (and I don’t just mean political news, could be cultural, sports etc) and none of the alternatives have replicated that yet. Mastodon is maybe not even technically capable of it (because federation introduces a delay in message delivery). I do enjoy niche discussions on Mastodon but once you’ve removed time as an influential factor for importance the default chronological view doesn’t feel anywhere near as to me.

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago

I think the point was controlled growth and community quality, not to capture Twitter's eternal September. Let them go to Threads.

baby 3y ago

Threads actually is pretty nice o.o

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

It's so dumb. Someone please explain how a social network is supposed to succeed when it's invite-only? Hype alone won't carry it. IMO, being invite-only is THE reason Google+ failed. There were so many memes about people getting excited for an invite, getting on, and then finding only a couple people they knew were on it, if any at all. For a social network to work, it needs to be a network. Limiting on-boarding eliminates the network, and so people lose interest fast.

fliggertiggy 3y ago
I think it's supposed to create a feeling of scarcity or exclusivity and make people perceive the network as more valuable.
- dymk 3y ago
  No, it's because their servers would fall over if it was public registration, and they wouldn't be able to keep up with moderation
haswell 3y ago
> Someone please explain how a social network is supposed to succeed when it's invite-only? Hype alone won't carry it. It may be that the industry has evolved to a degree that this is no longer viable (I also don’t know if I believe this…), but invite-only or otherwise limited launches formed the backbone of the current web. Facebook was only available if you had a school address. Gmail was only available via invite. Obviously a service can’t stay in a limited state forever and the hype will run out, but it’s not exactly a new approach to limiting access early in the life of a service. Google+ failed because Google killed it. I never experienced what you describe, but admittedly got an invite very early, and interacted with people who had also gotten the same thing. Limiting onboarding does not eliminate the network. It just limits it. Again, to your point, this can’t last forever, but is not by itself the issue as long as they continue to scale up access. There are plenty of other issues that will make or break a network.
- zappb 3y ago

kzrdude 3y ago

I think bluesky has mindshare and is still ready to be the eventual twitter heir

edavis 3y ago
Bluesky seems to be the "backup" for a lot of Twitter users. When Twitter had their outage a day or two ago the network activity spiked to some of the highest levels seen since like October.

mullingitover 3y ago

Part of me thinks that's the point, I don't believe Jack set out to make something that could be a meaningful threat to twitter. It seems like it's meant to be just big enough to suck the oxygen out of the room for other twitter alternatives. (Obviously that failed, now that threads is topping download charts and twitter is sitting in the 40s.) The man has enough access to capital and can easily hire folks with the know-how to make a service that can scale. That fact that this hasn't happened says something.