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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

#511

Post by AmericanChopper »

Eisenstein wrote: post #505
AmericanChopper wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all produce content that we publish on the social media site platform (posts, stories, reels. Text posts now too if you count Threads…). This is quintessential social media content, and was the primary way that social media platforms were used in their early years. My content with a couple dozen likes isn’t somehow not-social-media-content just because my audience is limited to my actual social circle. The point t…

Since you admittedly have no understanding of what people are talking about when they refer to social media being toxic then you must not be in sync with the definition of social media that others have. Regardless of whether it makes sense to you, it makes sense to a lot of other people. It would be nice if you weren't so incredibly defensive about your need to express your conception of an idea so that you could try…

What you’re talking about appears to be some particular subset of the content that appears on social media platforms, not the concept of social media itself.

Also before complaining about the toxicity of social media I’d suggest you take a look at the toxicity you’re choosing to contribute to this platform with how intentionally abrasive your comments appear to be.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#512

Post by AviationAtom »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #509
AviationAtom wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say I'm surprised by the persistent pessimism regarding Twitter, but I'm not. I don't think a sizable portion of people are even willing to entertain the idea that it might still having a place in the Internet ecosystem. Maybe not in exactly the same form as pre-Elon Twitter, but still a place.

Musk is using the For You feature to promote propaganda he approves of. My For You feed is full of paid climate change deniers, racists, mainstream far-right troll "journalists", and other people of questionable social value. It's absolutely an example of political editorialising and narrative control. And Musk now has a history of enabling criminal behaviour. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-dom-lucre-ban-elon-musk-child…

I would argue that it was the other way around before. It was also people with non-progessive views actually being entirely banned from the site. What is worthy of banning can quickly turn subjective, when really there are limited things both sides should agree are not permissible on a platform.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#513

Post by dessimus »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #439
dessimus wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to expound on that? Journalists are typically the ones bringing any sort of credibility to topics. Without journalists, it's just randos and bots shit-posting their hot takes.

> Journalists are typically the ones bringing any sort of credibility to topics. Not at all. "Journalists" are as biased as they come. They'll sing any tune prescribed by the hand that feeds them. That hand is most often advertisers but may also be governments. Chances are the articles they produce are actually hidden advertisements or propaganda. How could anyone with such massive conflicts of interest bring credibi…

> "Journalists" are as biased as they come.

So, you got any other account posting behind a pseudonym, being more unbiased than a journalist posting to Twitter/X using their professional name and attached to their organization? At least with the journalist, you gain some insight into what their biases might be.

> They'll sing any tune prescribed by the hand that feeds them.

You say that as though every dev working professionally on HN is 100% of the time working on projects they want to work on, writing the features they want to add, and releasing on a schedule that ensures the code is at a quality that fully reflects their talent.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#514

Post by AmericanChopper »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #502
AmericanChopper wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn’t create anything resembling the Instagram experience on any of those services, let alone using some of your other suggestion like email. If the only thing you think a substitute service requires is a way to send images, then you could replace Instagram with the postal service by that standard. The most absurd part of this argument is that discord, WhatsApp, messenger, etc… are all also social media platfo…

Discord is a social media platform. And you absolutely could. I’ve been in quite a few servers where channels were used as a dumping ground for whatever people were doing at a time and felt like showing off. It’s an extreme example, but one that works because ultimately Instagram’s ability to display this information is no different than anything else’s. You simply believe Instagram is some perfect solution that cann…

You _could_ use email as an Insta replacement as well. But the suggestion that they deliver the same service or experience is rather contrived.

But that’s really besides the point, because as you said, they’re all social media platforms, and it’s social media when somebody posts content on them to their large public audience, and it’s social media when I post to my small audience of friends. It’s the suggestion that one of those scenarios is social media and the other isn’t that’s completely illogical.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#515

Post by Eisenstein »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #511
Eisenstein wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you admittedly have no understanding of what people are talking about when they refer to social media being toxic then you must not be in sync with the definition of social media that others have. Regardless of whether it makes sense to you, it makes sense to a lot of other people. It would be nice if you weren't so incredibly defensive about your need to express your conception of an idea so that you could try…

What you’re talking about appears to be some particular subset of the content that appears on social media platforms, not the concept of social media itself. Also before complaining about the toxicity of social media I’d suggest you take a look at the toxicity you’re choosing to contribute to this platform with how intentionally abrasive your comments appear to be.

Thanks for the personal attack but I haven't called anyone's perspective 'asinine' or treated people with outright disrespect on this thread, as you have.

Is there a reason you are so reactionary when people pose an alternative viewpoint to your own?

Why did you bother posting such a thing as "I don't understand why people think that social media is toxic" if you are just going to attack everyone who attempts to give a reason for it?

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#516

Post by BeFlatXIII »

ghaff wrote: post #319
dahwolf wrote: post #315

It's pretty common that after a peak of new signups, most do not convert to long term active users. This doesn't even take into account that most "active users" tend to never post anything, they just leech. They still count as MAU. I'm sure that Meta has plenty of ways to boost that number in the long term but overall I find the entire thing underwhelming. Threads is text-based Instagram. But not even that as you can…

It’s hard to say. What I see is a lot of people in my network really scaling back or dropping Twitter and maybe playing with the alternatives but not really embracing them. I suspect that for many it will be a case of “Social media was nice while it lasted.”

> for many it will be a case of “Social media was nice while it lasted.”

Good for them. Social media is a miasma of addiction and time-wasting. ~~They~~ we should `touch grass.social`

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#518

Post by joenot443 »

dahwolf wrote: post #315

It's pretty common that after a peak of new signups, most do not convert to long term active users. This doesn't even take into account that most "active users" tend to never post anything, they just leech. They still count as MAU. I'm sure that Meta has plenty of ways to boost that number in the long term but overall I find the entire thing underwhelming. Threads is text-based Instagram. But not even that as you can…

> As Twitter seems on its way down, especially high follower users (such as journalists) are lost

People keep saying this, but I've been a daily Twitter user since long before the Musk timeline and if anything the platform's never felt more engaged. Perhaps particularly vocal complainers like Taylor Lorenz leaving the platform makes the exodus seem greater than it is, but in general it seems high-follower users are just as engaged as they were before.

The only exception seem to be characters like Lorenz whose conduct has been so poorly received by the community that they seemed to be looking for any good reason to leave while still saving face.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#519

Post by joenot443 »

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.

I don't go to Twitter to read takes by other programmers about a world which exists only online. I go to Twitter to discuss the world in front of us, a world which hasn't been so exciting and full of conflict for a very long time.

Mastodon is great if you want to read nerds talking with other nerds. For the rest of the population though, we need some takes from outside the nerd-cage.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#520

Post by rdschouw »

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…

Based on my own old Twitter circle, I see that:

A. Attention-seekers have gone to Threads or stayed on Twitter

B. People who are into niche interests and not part of group A are very active on Mastodon.

Mastodon to me very much feels like early-days Twitter. I truly I hope it stays like this. Threads might even be blessing in disguise for Mastodon network when it develops into a network similar to Instagram (content creators, brands, attention-seekers).

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