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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

#251

Post by somethoughts »

sanderjd wrote: post #221
andrewstuart wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this is failure. Twitter/threads is (or should be) a highly viral application. New users should find themselves compelled to use the product and compelled to encourage others to use it. With a 100 million user head start, if they were succeeding this shoukd have immediately resulted in the viral loop being triggered into explosive growth. It’s a huge failure. Not necessarily unrecoverable, but absolutely a…

I honestly think this is a very silly take. I don't think any of this is how any of this works. Threads attracted two kinds of people: 1. People coming mostly from instagram / tiktok who had never considered using Twitter because it had an established reputation and they knew it wasn't the kind of product for them, and 2. People switching from Twitter because they love Twitter-the-idea but can no longer stand Twitter…

I think a key strategic weapon that Meta has that no other social media will be able to match is its existing userbase on FB and Insta (i.e. basically all of the 7B+ human population). This can indefinitely be tapped as an audience for Thread content creators and advertisers.

Whereas most social media apps have the cold start problem (the stars need to align such that creators and users show up at the exact same time), Zuckerberg has solved it for Meta.

Threads doesn't need to be a hit on day 1 or even 100 because it has the existing Meta user base that counted on to consume Thread content (whether they like it or not).

For example, I have a FB account but am too lazy/old to sign up for Instagram but I did/do see a lot of Instagram reels that are converted into FB reels - particularly as Instagram reels was starting to take off. I am sure when it is monetizing those views for content creators and advertisers the converted reels get counted.

So while the power Instagram/Thread creaters will likely only push/consume the content in the corresponding app, Meta has the unique platform level ability to push the content to users of all 3 apps (i.e. FB/Insta/Threads).

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#252

Post by zogrodea »

bhauer wrote: post #149
nomel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a twitter account. Do you regularly hit the 1,000 tweet view limit? That's over 83 tweets an hour, for 12 hours.

I consider myself a pretty frequent Twitter user. I don't pay and I've never run into the daily limit.

I had hit the rate limit a few trimes when it was new, but never since then. I think the limit has been either removed or vastly reduced from that experience. I don't see any of the people I follow complaining about it either.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#253

Post by hcurtiss »

marcosdumay wrote: post #160
nerdawson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Meanwhile, Twitter keeps its slow death. People are certainly going somewhere (outside?), what isn't happening is for all of them going to the same place. IMO, that's a very good thing, but it does break any ambition of social world domination large companies may have.

Last numbers I saw, Twitter DAUs have held pretty steady. What evidence do you have of a "slow death"?

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#254

Post by mxuribe »

nerdawson wrote: post #66
hooverd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon isn't going to be /the/ new place. Hopefully it will become part of many new places.

Last year Mastodon went through a hype cycle. Everyone was declaring Twitter over. You had people stating they were leaving for good, dual-posting, etc. Funnily enough many of those same people are back on Twitter today with little mention of Mastodon. It peaked in November and then went into decline. As people leave, the value of the network goes down so even more people leave. Musk's antics might prop it up every o…

> ...As people leave, the value of the network goes down so even more people leave...

But, i would posit that there is a rhetorical currency exchange at play here. The "value" that one might assign to a silo like Facebook or Threads is not the same "value" one might assign to various software stacks and/or networks on the Fediverse. Like, its not enough for me to state that they're different/like comparing apples vs oranges. I mean, for example, if I only have a single kid/offspring, does that mean that i have not grown the "value" of my family, because i have not maximized my partner's reproductive capabilities, or resorted to adoption to extend that, etc.? That's sill of course. Well, i assure you, the intent of networks on the Fediverse is NOT the same as the goals and intent of silos like Facebook, twitter, threads, etc.

I think @unshavedyak stated it great with their comments, but this is my favorite of theirs: "...So many people think we need another Reddit and Twitter. Many of us however are looking for exactly something not Reddit or Twitter..."

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#255

Post by afavour »

nerdawson wrote: post #41
dhosek wrote: 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…

> that they know and like (regardless of how much they claim not to).

I assure you I genuinely do not like what Twitter has become. The lack of viable alternative doesn’t change that fact.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#256

Post by operatingthetan »

pessimizer wrote: post #243
operatingthetan wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google of a decade ago had launched Orkut, Friendster, Wayze, Reader, and YouTube. Several of those were modest hits, one remains a giant (YT), and one is much missed by its small but quite significant fan base (Reader). Google didn't "launch" youtube. They purchased it. It was big before they purchased it. Regarding Reader, calling something "small but quite significant" is nonsensical. Additionally you're propping…

Could you just be specific about why the first example brought up doesn't apply, instead of letting the other person put themselves out there to advance the discussion and finding little details to accuse them of bad faith? The idea that forgetting that Google failed horribly with Google Video before buying YouTube is a "smell" of bad faith is weird.

I did regarding the timelines, then they pivoted to including HN threads in the comparison when my original statement was about articles. I don't know what you're talking about regarding Google Video, I did not mention it.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#257

Post by yafbum »

andrewstuart wrote: post #200
justapassenger wrote: post #180

It’s super funny to see people framing that as Threads failing. They totally may fail. But even after that initial drop (which is expected, for something that managed to get so much hype) they’re likely still the biggest app in the history in terms of DAU in few weeks after the launch. And if there’s one thing Meta knows how to do is to copy successful idea and slowly grind the growth till it dominates market.

Absolutely this is failure. Twitter/threads is (or should be) a highly viral application. New users should find themselves compelled to use the product and compelled to encourage others to use it. With a 100 million user head start, if they were succeeding this shoukd have immediately resulted in the viral loop being triggered into explosive growth. It’s a huge failure. Not necessarily unrecoverable, but absolutely a…

It's dumb to pass this kind of judgement so quickly. Nobody should expect massive habit changes from one day to the next. All that a viral product needs is some foothold to grow from, and by that measure threads still has a fantastic foothold.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#258

Post by [deleted] »

hazebooth wrote: post #186

I want threads to succeed so badly. It's the only app I've ever actually liked the UI of. I've tried numerous Mastodon apps (Ivory included), BlueSky, Twitter, and all of their web variants. I find myself returning to Threads even if the functionality is limited, because it's just that enjoyable. I'm rooting for 'em!

[deleted]

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#259

Post by afavour »

throwaway-243 wrote: post #80
bandyaboot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It couldn’t be more fundamentally different for people who just want to read content without an account. Previously, Twitter was a thing that existed, now it’s not a thing that exists.

99.9% of people will just click the google login button and continue on as if nothing had happened. i sympathize with you. i had to make a throwaway google account. but it's not even close to relevant to the vast majority of users. not saying that's a good thing but it's reality.

> 99.9% of people will just click the google login button and continue on as if nothing had happened

You have a very, very rosy perception of login walls. All the stats I’ve see would disagree.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#260

Post by _jal »

AlexandrB wrote: post #196
nerdawson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> First, Mastodon was going to be the new place. It wasn't. Just about all the people whose opinions I'm interested in hearing are on Mastodon now. I don't really care if anyone else shows up. Maybe it's better that they don't.

Yeah, same here. For my purposes, Mastodon is superior to what Twitter was at its peak.

I only look at Xitter for Ukraine news - that community hasn't migrated elsewhere. But that's mostly on third-party pages, I don't log in anymore, so the site itself is useless to me.

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