The fact that Threads doesn't even work on desktop is enough to disqualify it from ever being used for "serious" use-cases in my opinion. If nothing else, it's enough to make it unusable for personally.
The fact that the advertised Fediverse integration doesn't even exist in the current version is very funny to me as well.
I feel like it will find its niche with people who feel comfortable on Instagram, but it certainly doesn't come close to replacing Twitter for me.
Threads is not a counter-argument because it's only working because it has Meta/FaceBook/Instagram and their existing network backing. It's not an unknown player simply offering a better mousetrap.
I kinda stopped using Threads and then they started putting controversial posts on it all over my Facebook feed. Pretty clever. Now I check it often again
Threads is an MVP to get people who are fed up with Twitter. It works and they're committed to improving it.
I don't think Threads will have the same fate as other Facebook/Meta products simply because the sign up process is so painless. If you use Instagram (which like 1bn+ people do) then signing up just means downloading the app and pressing a couple of buttons. So barrier of entry is extremely low and Instagram is still popular with young people.
Facebook was forgotten by young people already in 2012, so Facebook Poke was not really going to compete. I don't think you can draw parallels there.
I'm excited to see if they can innovate in the space. I don't really see Zuckerberg as a bad figure.
I certainly hope Threads has no future in the internet of tomorrow. We need to move away from centralized systems.
ActivityPub is dangerous too! The protocol suffers from federated cabal censorship. Entire Mastodon instances will ban over the prettiest rationales, just like Reddit moderators and their little fiefdoms. It's quite fascist.
I'm hoping BlueSky's protocol of distributed opt-in filtering and extensions wins. I don't want anyone deciding things on my behalf. You're free to filter me out, you're free to subscribe to someone who filters me out, but I get angry when the means of communication and those chosen to rule over it do it without recourse. The reasoning, despite being mostly petty, shouldn't even matter - it's authoritarian and awful.
Threads was a dumb idea, clearly pushed by non-product executives. If there were any product people, then wtf were you thinking? You can't expect to waltz in to that arena, zero plan and expect your "Meta" backing to carry you. Especially given that FB has become an absolute mess of a product.
Addendum: I recently re-signed-up for FB in 2020 & 3 years later killed my account because of the sheer amount of irrelevant content. Felt like I was watching bad TV.
I am/was a twitter doomer, and jumped ship to mastodon ages ago. I'm not convinced Threads will manage to capture the people that used Twitter (which was significantly media & politics types) and kill Twitter.
Personally, I don't have faith Meta will remain comitted to Threads. We spurn Google for killing of projects, but Meta/Facebook has a history of spinning up side projects especially for Instagram and killing them not too long after. Threads has already been killed! https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/17/instagram-will-shut-down-i...
Threads is just an instagram feature, comparing it's speed of market adoption to netflix and OpenAI is pretty meaningless, especially considering the drop-off and lack of notable innovation.
- "You cant delete Threads without deleting Instagram altogether": but you can deactivate it. What's the difference, and why do I care? Without including that info, you're useless.
- "Threads collects sensitive personal information about you": How? Inferred from the things I post? Well I'll just not post those things.
- "Threads collects data about your employment": Same.
- "Threads collects data about your body": Same. Alternatively, this could come from the Health API, which I have to provide explicit permission for. Such permission was not even asked for.
- "Threads collects data about your web activity": How? It reads referrer headers. So an issue with my User Agent, if it were configured to do that. Which it isn't.
- "Threads collects data about your location". It may reverse-geocode my IP. Okay. And? Literally any analytics service with a map does the same.
Hopeful? Didn't the Threads announcement literally state they were going to federate with Mastodon?
> Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress
> We’re committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads – our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service
https://opoyi.com/technology/is-threads-app-censoring-conser...
Tim Pool's take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9gTTBD5Lk
I already avoid Facebook like the plague, barely touch Instagram or Twitter, so I don't plan on using Threads regardless...
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