I know it is not what you are exactly asking but one metric is the Google Play Store download counts where Threads is by far the most popular:
Bluesky: 1M+ downloads
Mastodon (official client): 1M+ downloads (there are multiple clients but most downloaded one is probably the official client)
Threads: 100M+ downloads
As a user of Mastodon and Threads, I feel like Threads has the most active user base and also it is possible to find more popular or official Twitter users on Threads as well. The biggest lacking features are trending topics and DMs. Also the video player features are annoyingly lacking, can't even pause a video on web player. If they can implement these features quickly I think it is a viable alternative to Twitter/X.
I recently got invitation for Bluesky and briefly tried it, but unlike Threads, I couldn't find anybody who I was following on Twitter. Also it was a bit hard to discover new people, so I just left.
Signup? yes. Already did. Use it? Not sure. I don't use Twitter much either though these days. Does Threads have the ecosystem early Twitter had? It wouldn't let me use it from a desktop which annoyed me to begin with.
I also have a bluesky account and look at it maybe once a week at best.
Threads is wildly feature-incomplete, but there's so much demand for a twitter alternative that this is an embarrassingly one-sided product fight. For a 0.0.1-alpha version to steamroll into the space like this, it's now just a matter of the long goodbye for twitter as it becomes a space where you go to find someone's Threads handle.
I give it 24 hours, tops, until it eclipses the entire Fediverse, and Bluesky becomes an obscure historical footnote.
I will never even consider using threads, because I will never use Instagram/Facebook. Even Twitter I only reluctantly had an account to follow specific individuals for information. I have a mastodon account but I don’t like it very much.
I will wait to try Bluesky. If it dies before I get the chance, then I won’t be using anything at all. Threads is not an option.
It’s one of the fastest growing apps in history and already a significant percentage of Twitter’s total user base. It’s surged past Mastodon in total user count. I hope ActivityPub becomes the standard, but pretending like Threads isn’t a massive hit ignores reality.
Threads was never as big as Twitter. They're literally days old (15 days). I'm not sure why it's expected to match or outmatch Twitter in anything currently.
I think the problem with Threads is they bootstrapped its user-base and content from Instagram. As a result, it feels a lot more like 'Instagram with a Twitter UI' than it does old-school Twitter, where yes there was a global platform (which HN notoriously hated) but there were also niche groups, programming communities, reverse engineering communities, etc.
Bluesky seems to be doing much better, it's more quiet which is problematic but feels much more like a blank slate, there are individual users I am following and hearing interesting things from that are not just cookie-cutter instagram posts. I am beginning to find tech people on the platform, etc.
Even if these numbers are moderately inaccurate, Threads is still a smashing success given the time frame. The copying seems to have gone very well. Don't forget they were piggy backing off their own successful social media app, Instagram.
Hasn’t Twitter moved on to becoming the everything app like WeChat for video like YouTube?
Does Threads have to compete with Twitter for users or advertisers? I think people want to promote their YouTube channel and Threads has a lot of first-party tracking data.
So far out of all the Twitter / X alternatives and competitors, Threads is the clear serious contender. Especially one that has 50M+ active users (as admitted by Zuck) out of the gate in less than a month with 100M+ registered users even without launching in the EU.
The rest don't have a chance at all and are as good as dead or cannot handle the amount of users that both Twitter/X or Threads has.
It is clear that both of them will co-exist and retention always matters, with any so-called 'exodus'. For Threads it is early days. On the other hand over at Twitter / X [0] it seems far from 'dying', from the months of nonsense from the media who exaggerated the immediate collapse of Twitter / X last year which never happened.
Perhaps it is time to admit that you have been manipulated by the doomsayers who's only mission is to post clickbait and attract your eyeballs to their articles spreading nonsense to grift for affiliate links.
I had some experience with this after setting up social media accounts for a conference that I took over in March.
LinkedIn is beating them all, significantly. Instagram is next, which surprised me all little. After that it was X and then finally YouTube, which didn't have any content until September so it will likely/hopefully overtake some soon.
Threads AND Facebook have been kinda terrible. We just shuttered the Threads account and probably getting ready to do the same for the Facebook account. Threads just picked up some followers from Instagram after the initial launch.
Mastodon has a low follower count, but solid engagement among the followers who are there at least. Keeping that one around longer.
We may try Bluesky at some point and I'll continue remaining open to trying new things as they come out, but nothing made me optimistic about Threads from our trial so far.
I think the core issue is that despite how stupid and shitty it's become and seems intent on continuing to become, Twitter is still Twitter and Twitter users don't want BlueSky or Threads, they want Twitter which is still Twitter despite Elon and co's best efforts.
Also the ability for users to fact-check ads is still hilarious and entertaining which almost offsets the amount of ads.
Not a fan of Threads, but even less of a fan of Twitter.
So I'd personally want Threads to succeed. Everything about Twitter is broken especially in the recent months. I'm not saying Threads is good, but Threads at least has a chance not to be as bad as Twitter. Also fediverse support in the future is a huge plus.
Bluesky: 1M+ downloads
Mastodon (official client): 1M+ downloads (there are multiple clients but most downloaded one is probably the official client)
Threads: 100M+ downloads
As a user of Mastodon and Threads, I feel like Threads has the most active user base and also it is possible to find more popular or official Twitter users on Threads as well. The biggest lacking features are trending topics and DMs. Also the video player features are annoyingly lacking, can't even pause a video on web player. If they can implement these features quickly I think it is a viable alternative to Twitter/X.
I recently got invitation for Bluesky and briefly tried it, but unlike Threads, I couldn't find anybody who I was following on Twitter. Also it was a bit hard to discover new people, so I just left.
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