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Threads users down by more than a half

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Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#81
post #20
post #8

Okay something that confuses me: to replace Twitter (sorry, X), it has to be something whose posts get linked just as much, from outside that site. I have yet to see a single Threads post get linked anywhere -- not here, not Reddit, not even from Facebook. (Edit: Or at least, I'm too ignorant to realize what such a post would look like, in which case, branding fail.)

It took a while for people to start linking to Twitter (sorry, X). I'd give it a bit. You can link to stuff though: https://www.threads.net/@carnage4life/post/CvPrxHdr4Y2/?igsh...

Interesting that even without the ability to really use it on the web, Threads already has a better anonymous-user web view than Twitter.

Since the recent changes, on Twitter you can't see replies if you're linked to a tweet while not logged in, and you don't even have any indicator that replies exist and that you could see them with an account. The whole implementation of the changes in that area is a real baffler.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#82
post #23

I don’t use Twitter because I like Twitter, but because that’s where the people that I like to interact with (mostly writers) are. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Twitter isn’t going to be that place with each new chaos monkey attack from Musk, but what the successor place is going to be remains to be seen. Threads failed the smell test early on because it started out with algorithmic feed only and the algori…

> It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Twitter isn’t going to be that place with each new chaos monkey attack from Musk, but what the successor place is going to be remains to be seen. First, Mastodon was going to be the new place. It wasn't. Then Threads came along and again everyone said it would be the death knell for Twitter. It wasn't. My takeaway would be quite the opposite. While everything that comes along…

Maybe give threads more than 3 weeks before declaring it hasn't dethroned Twitter.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#83
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the most recent estimates of Twitter's value, Musk has already train wrecked 10s of billions of dollars. You mention that Twitter isn't that fundamentally different and from a product perspective, and I would mostly agree, but their finances are WAY worse than they were pre-Musk. The company has lost something like 50% of ad revenue, they've saddled themselves with something like an extra $1B dollars a year…

> Musk has already train wrecked 10s of billions of dollars. Why would a user of the site/app care about this? How is it impacting their experience?

Why are you asking that like someone suggested it? This was a reply to a specific claim.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not just ignore the "chaos monkeys" and focus on your writers instead? no one is forcing you to interact with anyone you don't like on X.

What’s X?

it's that thing you used to call twitter.

x.com

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#85
post #43

Facebook has done enough feature launches that they train their teams to look for and expect a huge initial engagement peak as people explore the product. It's Deltoid 101.

I don't work there anymore, but gods I miss Deltoid. It was a fantastic tool. Google's experimentation UX is like a decade behind.

The best thing about (maybe this didn't make it to deltoid) was that they counted degrees of freedom for the t stats based on the number of days the experiment was running, which was incredibly effective in stopping people launching broken crap.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#86

I'm rooting for Bluesky, they've been loosening up their invites and I've got most of my twitter friends on there and active.

There's Bluesky the platform, and then there are Bluesky's users. The platform itself still looks promising, but bsky.social is captured by some of the worst people on the Internet. At the end of the day, I don't think it's realistic for normal people to bring their own network.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#87
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Threads failed the smell test early on because it started out with algorithmic feed That was probably a wise decision to seed it with something for people to look at and interact with so they didn't just sign in and see a blank page. The random influencers and other people "go away" pretty quickly if you start following and interacting with people you care more about.

A common complaint with Threads was that, no after who you blocked or muted, it's near impossible to get away from a feed filled with influencers and common celebrity gossip nonsense. That seems to be part of the ongoing design intent - not just an aspect of how they wanted to bootstrap the service.

> a feed filled with influencers and common celebrity gossip

And marketers. Remember: marketers ruin everything. They early adopt every up-and-coming platform and fill it with grifty posts.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not just ignore the "chaos monkeys" and focus on your writers instead? no one is forcing you to interact with anyone you don't like on X.

What’s X?

A variable you could substitute with anything.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not just ignore the "chaos monkeys" and focus on your writers instead? no one is forcing you to interact with anyone you don't like on X.

What’s X?

It's what Musk is trying to rebrand Twitter as.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#90
post #72

The reason Threads is failing is that, for whatever reason, they chose to launch without a desktop experience. I can't imagine how many users went to threads.net, clicked around for a few minutes while being extremely confused on how to sign up or access the product, then left permanently. No, I'm not going to download your mobile app, and most people won't either.

What % of users do you think care about a desktop experience? I expect the vast majority of users would be mobile-only. I'm sure you can find relevant statistics about Twitters desktop vs mobile usage.

87.6% of Twitter active-seconds are mobile, according to Elon's most recent data.

Would've expected closer to 70/30 personally.

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