5 ms·

The Threads Creator Paradox

81 points by hn1986 2y ago

sdwvit 2y ago
My main issue with threads is that O can’t browse without signing up. Thus, it fails to form a value proposition.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > main issue with threads is that O can’t browse without signing up. Thus, it fails to form a value proposition This is conserved across billions of dollars of social media. I’m not on most social media. But a paywall clearly works.
  - kragen 2y ago
    the open internet demolished aol and compuserve. a paywall doesn't always work; it depends on circumstances
- monetus 2y ago
  It is federated to an extent now though, can't you use a mastodon client without a meta account? I believe you can, iiuc.
  - treyd 2y ago
    Threads has defeded many Fedi instances for not being advertiser friendly and many Fedi instances rightly defeded Threads to protect their users from their scraping.
    - immibis 2y ago
      This doesn't protect anyone from scraping (read: people publicly viewing publicly published content)
      - monetus 2y ago
        I wonder why people think mastodon instances aren't generally scraped. If it is public, it was probably scraped.
- fragmede 2y ago
  don't blame threads for that, that was decided for Twitter and threads and the rest of the Internet by the LinkedIn vs HiQ web scraping case which said that content available outside of a login wall is fair game.
  - logifail 2y ago
    > that was decided for Twitter and threads and the rest of the Internet by the LinkedIn vs HiQ web scraping case which said that content available outside of a login wall is fair game Q: Remind us who are the creators of all this valuable content that needs to be protected against scrapers? (Spoiler: not the platforms that are blocking anonymous access to it)
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
  I just now opened and browsed threads.net without logging in.
threeseed 2y ago
> Why are native creators who bet your platform on day one not getting financially incentivized I really hope this never happens. It was one of the key decisions that ruined Twitter as it motivated people towards engagement above all else. Which is why even in sub-communities like startups or tech everyone is posting clickbait and controversial takes. One of the smartest things Threads has done that is unique is that it rewards users who reply and engage with the community versus posting popular content. It means all of the Instagram influencers have not been able to get much traction.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  This is what finally drove me off Twitter. Not the acquisition, not the bots, not even the crypto-spam. It was the monetisation destroying any sense of good faith or genuine opinion. Just self-serving hot takes and engagement bait.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    I still do not understand why people feel that they are subjected to voodoo algorithms forced on them by Twitter. The only things I see on Twitter are written by, reposted by, or replied to by people I actually know in real life. You do not have to be subject to random content on Twitter! The only things that appear unbidden in my feed are ads, and in 2024 their inventory is so thin that there's hardly any of those.
    - dukeyukey 2y ago
      Vanishingly few people I know in real life use Twitter. The issue I had mostly wasn't random algorithm stuff - I used the mute button a _lot_ - it's people I previously respected and enjoyed reading the content of falling further and further into the "post hot takes and controversial opinions for engagement" trap.
    - kristiandupont 2y ago
      It might not be a lot but I certainly saw tweets from Elon frequently until I muted him. I didn't follow him. I noticed this explicitly because he is so prominent but I feel that my feed has plenty of tweets from people I don't follow.
jmyeet 2y ago
MOnetization on a social media platform is a tricky beast. It's so easy to screw the whole thing up. Take Tiktok for example. Now you have the Tiktok Shop 1 in 3 posts is just "I'm sorry to all the people who paid $20 for this $1 piece of junk from Alibaba because it's $10 now" posts. I guess its lucrative but it really lowers the value of posts. "Creators eligible for commision" videos aen't as obnoxious but still aren't great. Paid partnership videos likewise are 99% hollow and disingenuous. As a user I've been trained to look at the bottom left and if I see any of these ad signifiers, I just immediately scroll up. The creator fund tends to work better because it doesn't tend to really change someone's content. That's not strictly true. For example, stitches are ineligible for the creator fund so you'll find those in the fund will just screen grab instead. But you also hear of cases of creators getting almost shadowbanned while in the creator fund and it's resolved by leaving it. We can only speculate why. Perhaps Tktok decided to push other creators on the the fyp who it thought would genreate better ad revenue. ' But it's so easy to ruin the entire ecosystem with monetization.
mrbluecoat 2y ago
> a platform can't exist to be "an alternative." It should be able to stand alone A good summary of why so many competitors fail to reach critical mass
jxi 2y ago
Nobody has ever linked me or talked to me about something on Threads, and the only reason I know it still exists is because of annoying ads on Instagram. Is it a ghost town or am I just not the target demographic (what is the target demographic)?
- omoikane 2y ago
  Seems like people submit stuff from Threads about once every few weeks, but they just don't get much attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=threads.net https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=threads.net Unlike twitter where we see a lot more submissions, and many get voted up. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com
  - Finnucane 2y ago
    A big part of what made Twitter influential was that twits could be easily shared widely on other platforms. That doesn’t happen with Threads, and happens less now with Xitter.
coolThingsFirst 2y ago
Its garbage
TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
Facebook is well known for using bait-and-switch tactics once they grow past a certain size. They've burned bridge after bridge over multiple years on their existing platforms, increasingly making it difficult for people to reach their audience unless they pay up for ads. During the initial release, Threads seemed like a sanitized corporate playground for various big-name organizations to share their slop and promotions. Right now I get a lot of anti-Elon / anti-Twitter slop or political slop despite never engaging with such content. Most of the famous people I follow on Threads are just cross-posting the same content on every major social media platform anyway. I barely know anyone from real life that actually participates on Threads. In general, the tools for discovering interesting or new people don't seem to be there for Threads. Finally, this current version of Threads is probably the best it's ever going to be. Once enough people are using the platform Zuck is going to start shoving ads down your throat, just like they've done with Instagram. Edit: Instagram also keeps giving me notifications when certain people make posts on Threads, to try and get me to use the platform more often. And even Threads will randomly send me a notification that Yann LeCun made some post on Threads which it thinks I will really love, despite it being incredibly generic and uninteresting.
- heavenlyblue 2y ago
  Amazingly, the only notification switch that doesn't exist on Instagram is that of disabling Threads notifications. The probably forgot about it.
- ClassyJacket 2y ago
  Precisely. I refuse to get invested when we know it will end up like Facebook - completely useless with no posts from anyone you actually follow.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  > start shoving ads down your throat, just like they've done with Instagram I've never seen an ad on Instagram when using the browser version from my desktop. Is this universal, and if so, why?
  - 2y ago
nomilk 2y ago
The tweetdeck link redirects to a pricing page - I thought it was free? Weird story, but when I first used twitter ~2 years ago, it was to follow one specific current event, so my entire feed was one single-issue. I loved it! Over time I've obviously clicked on content on other topics and the feed got all mixed up with 20 different topics, which feels so gross and disorganised. If anyone remembers 'Zite' app (which unfortunately got acquired and disbanded ~2014), it was basically a bunch of news feeds sorted per topic - super handy at the time for the things I was interested in: I could read 50 notes/articles on blockchain (then in its infancy), then on airbnb, then uber etc. I could read exactly one topic at a time without any distractions mixed in. It felt so organised. I really like single-issue feeds like what tweetdeck is (I think, I don't pay for it).
- parsadotsh 2y ago
  Maybe you can try lists on Twitter/X?
- sunaookami 2y ago
  TweetDeck (now "X Pro") is no longer free and they removed the good old version. The new version completely misses the point of what TweetDeck was. You can no longer use multiple accounts at the same time for example.
mrkramer 2y ago
Zuckerberg bets that Twitter will collapse under's Musk's management and that Threads would then fill up the void. But my assumption is, Threads will close sooner or later because in the long term, it is simply not viable business for Meta. How will Meta monetize Threads when growth starts to stagnate and when engagement starts to drop? Zuckerberg even introduced ActivityPub compatibility for Threads in order to improve network effect but is that enough? We can even end up in the situation where both Threads and Twitter collapse and people start to move to Mastodon. That would actually be great. More power to the people!
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Threads will close sooner or later because in the long term, it is simply not viable business for Meta. How will Meta monetize Threads when growth starts to stagnate and when engagement starts to drop? This is tautology. And monetising a 175-million user base [1] is not dependent on growth. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/3/24191074/meta-threads-users-mark-zuckerberg https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/3/24191074/meta-threads-user...
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    >monetising a 175-million user base is not dependent on growth Sure but engagement of that userbase will eventually start to drop because there are so many social networks out there and Threads is not that much different than your average XY network. Zuckerberg's chain of thought was "Twitter is a mess, we can do it better and we have the power of Facebook's and Instagram's distribution", but is that enough? What special and hot features Threads has? And just look at Google; how many products they shut down because of slow user growth and low engagement? killedbygoogle.com is the testemony....so many good products killed, just because they weren't cost-effective for Google.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > engagement of that userbase will eventually start to drop because there are so many social networks out there and Threads is not that much different than your average XY network This is the unsubstantiated pillar of your argument. From all objective measures, Threads is doing fantastically. It being undifferentiated is less of an argument now than it was at launch. They could die. But right now they’re a strong No. 2.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
joemaller1 2y ago
> This isn't inherently bad - Twitter wasn't a great place for anyone's mental health *and is even less so now.* This kind of thoughtless, evidence-free garbage undermines everything else in the post.
mark336 2y ago
Zuckerberg copied me. I created a threads-based app and the next thing you know he creates one. I was trying to create a twitter, message board hybrid. If you want to see the latest iteration, its here: https://asiaviewnews.com/gigabots/threads https://asiaviewnews.com/gigabots/threads I turned into into a AI/tech news summary website with post/reply functionality.

81 points by hn1986 2y ago

sdwvit 2y ago

My main issue with threads is that O can’t browse without signing up. Thus, it fails to form a value proposition.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> main issue with threads is that O can’t browse without signing up. Thus, it fails to form a value proposition This is conserved across billions of dollars of social media. I’m not on most social media. But a paywall clearly works.
- kragen 2y ago
  the open internet demolished aol and compuserve. a paywall doesn't always work; it depends on circumstances
monetus 2y ago
It is federated to an extent now though, can't you use a mastodon client without a meta account? I believe you can, iiuc.
- treyd 2y ago
  Threads has defeded many Fedi instances for not being advertiser friendly and many Fedi instances rightly defeded Threads to protect their users from their scraping.
  - immibis 2y ago
    This doesn't protect anyone from scraping (read: people publicly viewing publicly published content)
    - monetus 2y ago
      I wonder why people think mastodon instances aren't generally scraped. If it is public, it was probably scraped.
fragmede 2y ago
don't blame threads for that, that was decided for Twitter and threads and the rest of the Internet by the LinkedIn vs HiQ web scraping case which said that content available outside of a login wall is fair game.
- logifail 2y ago
  > that was decided for Twitter and threads and the rest of the Internet by the LinkedIn vs HiQ web scraping case which said that content available outside of a login wall is fair game Q: Remind us who are the creators of all this valuable content that needs to be protected against scrapers? (Spoiler: not the platforms that are blocking anonymous access to it)
TiredOfLife 2y ago
I just now opened and browsed threads.net without logging in.

threeseed 2y ago

> Why are native creators who bet your platform on day one not getting financially incentivized I really hope this never happens. It was one of the key decisions that ruined Twitter as it motivated people towards engagement above all else. Which is why even in sub-communities like startups or tech everyone is posting clickbait and controversial takes. One of the smartest things Threads has done that is unique is that it rewards users who reply and engage with the community versus posting popular content. It means all of the Instagram influencers have not been able to get much traction.

dukeyukey 2y ago
This is what finally drove me off Twitter. Not the acquisition, not the bots, not even the crypto-spam. It was the monetisation destroying any sense of good faith or genuine opinion. Just self-serving hot takes and engagement bait.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  I still do not understand why people feel that they are subjected to voodoo algorithms forced on them by Twitter. The only things I see on Twitter are written by, reposted by, or replied to by people I actually know in real life. You do not have to be subject to random content on Twitter! The only things that appear unbidden in my feed are ads, and in 2024 their inventory is so thin that there's hardly any of those.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    Vanishingly few people I know in real life use Twitter. The issue I had mostly wasn't random algorithm stuff - I used the mute button a _lot_ - it's people I previously respected and enjoyed reading the content of falling further and further into the "post hot takes and controversial opinions for engagement" trap.
  - kristiandupont 2y ago
    It might not be a lot but I certainly saw tweets from Elon frequently until I muted him. I didn't follow him. I noticed this explicitly because he is so prominent but I feel that my feed has plenty of tweets from people I don't follow.

jmyeet 2y ago

MOnetization on a social media platform is a tricky beast. It's so easy to screw the whole thing up. Take Tiktok for example. Now you have the Tiktok Shop 1 in 3 posts is just "I'm sorry to all the people who paid $20 for this $1 piece of junk from Alibaba because it's $10 now" posts. I guess its lucrative but it really lowers the value of posts. "Creators eligible for commision" videos aen't as obnoxious but still aren't great. Paid partnership videos likewise are 99% hollow and disingenuous. As a user I've been trained to look at the bottom left and if I see any of these ad signifiers, I just immediately scroll up. The creator fund tends to work better because it doesn't tend to really change someone's content. That's not strictly true. For example, stitches are ineligible for the creator fund so you'll find those in the fund will just screen grab instead. But you also hear of cases of creators getting almost shadowbanned while in the creator fund and it's resolved by leaving it. We can only speculate why. Perhaps Tktok decided to push other creators on the the fyp who it thought would genreate better ad revenue. ' But it's so easy to ruin the entire ecosystem with monetization.

mrbluecoat 2y ago

> a platform can't exist to be "an alternative." It should be able to stand alone A good summary of why so many competitors fail to reach critical mass

jxi 2y ago

Nobody has ever linked me or talked to me about something on Threads, and the only reason I know it still exists is because of annoying ads on Instagram. Is it a ghost town or am I just not the target demographic (what is the target demographic)?

omoikane 2y ago
Seems like people submit stuff from Threads about once every few weeks, but they just don't get much attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=threads.net https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=threads.net Unlike twitter where we see a lot more submissions, and many get voted up. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com
- Finnucane 2y ago
  A big part of what made Twitter influential was that twits could be easily shared widely on other platforms. That doesn’t happen with Threads, and happens less now with Xitter.

coolThingsFirst 2y ago

Its garbage

TheAceOfHearts 2y ago

Facebook is well known for using bait-and-switch tactics once they grow past a certain size. They've burned bridge after bridge over multiple years on their existing platforms, increasingly making it difficult for people to reach their audience unless they pay up for ads. During the initial release, Threads seemed like a sanitized corporate playground for various big-name organizations to share their slop and promotions. Right now I get a lot of anti-Elon / anti-Twitter slop or political slop despite never engaging with such content. Most of the famous people I follow on Threads are just cross-posting the same content on every major social media platform anyway. I barely know anyone from real life that actually participates on Threads. In general, the tools for discovering interesting or new people don't seem to be there for Threads. Finally, this current version of Threads is probably the best it's ever going to be. Once enough people are using the platform Zuck is going to start shoving ads down your throat, just like they've done with Instagram. Edit: Instagram also keeps giving me notifications when certain people make posts on Threads, to try and get me to use the platform more often. And even Threads will randomly send me a notification that Yann LeCun made some post on Threads which it thinks I will really love, despite it being incredibly generic and uninteresting.

heavenlyblue 2y ago
Amazingly, the only notification switch that doesn't exist on Instagram is that of disabling Threads notifications. The probably forgot about it.
ClassyJacket 2y ago
Precisely. I refuse to get invested when we know it will end up like Facebook - completely useless with no posts from anyone you actually follow.
jgalt212 2y ago
> start shoving ads down your throat, just like they've done with Instagram I've never seen an ad on Instagram when using the browser version from my desktop. Is this universal, and if so, why?
- 2y ago

nomilk 2y ago

The tweetdeck link redirects to a pricing page - I thought it was free? Weird story, but when I first used twitter ~2 years ago, it was to follow one specific current event, so my entire feed was one single-issue. I loved it! Over time I've obviously clicked on content on other topics and the feed got all mixed up with 20 different topics, which feels so gross and disorganised. If anyone remembers 'Zite' app (which unfortunately got acquired and disbanded ~2014), it was basically a bunch of news feeds sorted per topic - super handy at the time for the things I was interested in: I could read 50 notes/articles on blockchain (then in its infancy), then on airbnb, then uber etc. I could read exactly one topic at a time without any distractions mixed in. It felt so organised. I really like single-issue feeds like what tweetdeck is (I think, I don't pay for it).

parsadotsh 2y ago
Maybe you can try lists on Twitter/X?
sunaookami 2y ago
TweetDeck (now "X Pro") is no longer free and they removed the good old version. The new version completely misses the point of what TweetDeck was. You can no longer use multiple accounts at the same time for example.

mrkramer 2y ago

Zuckerberg bets that Twitter will collapse under's Musk's management and that Threads would then fill up the void. But my assumption is, Threads will close sooner or later because in the long term, it is simply not viable business for Meta. How will Meta monetize Threads when growth starts to stagnate and when engagement starts to drop? Zuckerberg even introduced ActivityPub compatibility for Threads in order to improve network effect but is that enough? We can even end up in the situation where both Threads and Twitter collapse and people start to move to Mastodon. That would actually be great. More power to the people!

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Threads will close sooner or later because in the long term, it is simply not viable business for Meta. How will Meta monetize Threads when growth starts to stagnate and when engagement starts to drop? This is tautology. And monetising a 175-million user base [1] is not dependent on growth. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/3/24191074/meta-threads-users-mark-zuckerberg https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/3/24191074/meta-threads-user...
- mrkramer 2y ago
  >monetising a 175-million user base is not dependent on growth Sure but engagement of that userbase will eventually start to drop because there are so many social networks out there and Threads is not that much different than your average XY network. Zuckerberg's chain of thought was "Twitter is a mess, we can do it better and we have the power of Facebook's and Instagram's distribution", but is that enough? What special and hot features Threads has? And just look at Google; how many products they shut down because of slow user growth and low engagement? killedbygoogle.com is the testemony....so many good products killed, just because they weren't cost-effective for Google.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > engagement of that userbase will eventually start to drop because there are so many social networks out there and Threads is not that much different than your average XY network This is the unsubstantiated pillar of your argument. From all objective measures, Threads is doing fantastically. It being undifferentiated is less of an argument now than it was at launch. They could die. But right now they’re a strong No. 2.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

joemaller1 2y ago

> This isn't inherently bad - Twitter wasn't a great place for anyone's mental health *and is even less so now.* This kind of thoughtless, evidence-free garbage undermines everything else in the post.

mark336 2y ago

Zuckerberg copied me. I created a threads-based app and the next thing you know he creates one. I was trying to create a twitter, message board hybrid. If you want to see the latest iteration, its here: https://asiaviewnews.com/gigabots/threads https://asiaviewnews.com/gigabots/threads I turned into into a AI/tech news summary website with post/reply functionality.