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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

#61

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 Is this hyperbole? Twitter will be fine, Musk isn't going to train-wreck 10s of billions. Twitter today isn't even that fundamentally different from pre-Musk. The biggest change has been perception from ideological extremes. I'm sure Twitter will evolve but evolution is for growth, not death. You…

Are you kidding? Twitter has limits on how much you can read now. It's useless for me.

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.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#62
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter today isn't even that fundamentally different from pre-Musk. If you don't have a Twitter account, you cannot see threads on Twitter anymore.

And if you don't pay for twitter blue you can't DM people anymore unless they know to explicitly turn off that new filter. You also are limited in how many tweets you can view in a day, and without paying your reach is also shortened. At the same time a lot of people I never would have wanted in my feed are now showing up all the time.

If you're using twitter web, the Control Panel for Twitter browser extension takes the 'for you' abomination behind the back of the barn and gives it both barrels.

(there's also a userscript version IIRC)

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#63
post #4

It seems to have enough people that it has some legs. I am really looking forward to a web version of it, but otherwise enjoy it, despite some growing pains. Edit I'm here: https://www.threads.net/@davidnwelton Edit2 If I think about it some, the biggest drawback about Threads for me is swapping one egocentric billionaire who is rapidly going off the rails for another who is, for the moment, more stable, but has stil…

>Mastodon seems like the alternative if you really hate that kind of setup, but... it doesn't seem to have much traction.

People keep saying this as if the only "success" mastadon can have is by being in everyone's pocket. It's not an SV unicorn startup, it's not trying to buy out some investors. It's doing exactly what it is designed to do: be a user owned platform. Not everyone will want that all the time, and some people will never want that, and that's fine, not everyone spent 24/7 on the forums of the old web either.

We could stop considering "Everyone is using it all the time" as the desired end goal maybe?

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#64
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?

Because if the site isn't making money, it's not sustainable. Unless musk wants to run it from his pocket money.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#65
post #25
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…

If I had to guess what the indicator of where the new writer bar ends up, it will be wherever Joyce Carol Oates goes. Not because people like her or her tweets necessarily, but that she’s kind of like the black hole at the center of a galaxy, you don’t want to get too close (she’s the queen of the bizarre takes, not to mention her post with a rather disturbing picture of her feet), and yet everything kind of inelucta…

She once posted a picture of her keyboard that haunts me.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#66
post #46

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…

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 once in a while but the long term trend doesn't look good. My prediction is in a couple of years time, the only remaining users will be the most avid hardcore fans.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#67
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.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#68
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…

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.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#69

This is being reported in a strange way. We don't typically write about startups gaining initial signups and then compare them to the active users as if they lost something by not getting 100% of them to engage. Do we even have numbers for what percent of twitter users actively engage versus total user base? I don't think they are doing very bad considering it's mobile only right now.

We have seen critical appraisals of past social media launches, e.g., "Google+ Study Reveals Minimal Social Activity, Weak User Engagement" (2012)

https://www.fastcompany.com/1837332/exclusive-new-google-stu...>

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3977050>

The study in question is, to my surprise, still available directly online: https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2012/05/15/new-google-plus-data-s...>

There are another 14 HN submissions matching "Google+ ghost town" at this writing: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=google%2B%20ghost%20town>

I did my own assessment of G+ later, after there was much discussion of Google's own "engagement" numbers for the platform meeting open skepticism. (I used the platform heavily myself and appreciated elements of it.)

I think we're seeing more and deserved skepticism generally in accepting statements of activity at face value, which is a Good Thing in my view.

Re: Threads users down by more than a half

#70
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That launched like a day or two ago -- though it doesn't remember your last setting and is hard to find.

Maybe they're A/B testing it; I don't see any such option.

Update, force close the app, then touch the main logo once you're back in.
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