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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 exi

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?
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  Are you using an adblocker on desktop while not using one on a phone?
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    not on every browser, but it is Linux. perhaps Meta doesn't show ads to browsers with Linux user agent strings as they assume all are bots.
    - pndy 2y ago
      Still happens to me on Linux - despite of the distro and browser used, and extensions. I guess it's account based thing independent to some degree from browser cookies
satvikpendem 2y ago
> 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. Yep, that is why I continue to use Twitter. The people I've met there (usually other solo founders and indie hackers) simply are more interesting that anyone on Threads, and I can actually interact with them whereas Threads feels more read-only, people post there but don't actually engage with the replies. > anti-Elon / anti-Twitter slop or political slop Twitter has an opposite problem, too much Elon slop that I don't want to see. If not for that, Twitter would be perfect.
pndy 2y ago
Honestly, I believe that facebook is already on the myspace path of slow and long decay. And their nail coffins will be all the shenanigans with content. There are unbearable ads on instagram - whenever I have a chance to glimpse what happens there, there's more content that doesn't belong to my friends. Same goes for facebook: earlier this year, there was a constant flood of AI generated content; messenger had same thing - my contacts list shows me people I don't know or I don't want to get in touch with, or some old-fashion celebrities and influencers. fb feed in general tend to show stuff out of order for years and even if you manage to get into the old chronological sorting, it will keep you from scrolling further into the past giving you impression that in order to be up-to-date with what happens there you should be there. I really believe that entering ActivityPub is anything else but a grab on freely available data they can use to train their algorithms. Neither I won't be surprised when they decide to leave fediverse - because that will eventually happen. They just need to figure out how to turn time spent there pretending to be "open", profitable. --- And as a fun thing: I was scrolling yesterday mastodon and bumped on a few posts from an user who seems to be dealing with threads moderation system suggesting removal or edit of some of his posts [1], and a weird "scratchie" approach to unlock additional icons for the app. This feels as both overly sanitized and quite childish approach. [1] - https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112783533143256553 https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112783533143256553 [2] - https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112777883481257176 https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112777883481257176

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?

satvikpendem 2y ago
Are you using an adblocker on desktop while not using one on a phone?
- jgalt212 2y ago
  not on every browser, but it is Linux. perhaps Meta doesn't show ads to browsers with Linux user agent strings as they assume all are bots.
  - pndy 2y ago
    Still happens to me on Linux - despite of the distro and browser used, and extensions. I guess it's account based thing independent to some degree from browser cookies

satvikpendem 2y ago

> 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. Yep, that is why I continue to use Twitter. The people I've met there (usually other solo founders and indie hackers) simply are more interesting that anyone on Threads, and I can actually interact with them whereas Threads feels more read-only, people post there but don't actually engage with the replies. > anti-Elon / anti-Twitter slop or political slop Twitter has an opposite problem, too much Elon slop that I don't want to see. If not for that, Twitter would be perfect.

pndy 2y ago

Honestly, I believe that facebook is already on the myspace path of slow and long decay. And their nail coffins will be all the shenanigans with content. There are unbearable ads on instagram - whenever I have a chance to glimpse what happens there, there's more content that doesn't belong to my friends. Same goes for facebook: earlier this year, there was a constant flood of AI generated content; messenger had same thing - my contacts list shows me people I don't know or I don't want to get in touch with, or some old-fashion celebrities and influencers. fb feed in general tend to show stuff out of order for years and even if you manage to get into the old chronological sorting, it will keep you from scrolling further into the past giving you impression that in order to be up-to-date with what happens there you should be there. I really believe that entering ActivityPub is anything else but a grab on freely available data they can use to train their algorithms. Neither I won't be surprised when they decide to leave fediverse - because that will eventually happen. They just need to figure out how to turn time spent there pretending to be "open", profitable. --- And as a fun thing: I was scrolling yesterday mastodon and bumped on a few posts from an user who seems to be dealing with threads moderation system suggesting removal or edit of some of his posts [1], and a weird "scratchie" approach to unlock additional icons for the app. This feels as both overly sanitized and quite childish approach. [1] - https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112783533143256553 https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112783533143256553 [2] - https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112777883481257176 https://mastodon.world/@countercultureo/112777883481257176