See, this is why capitalism trends toward monopolies.

A small developer could create the exact same app down to the semicolon, but wouldn't get even a quarter of the traffic on release.

But because it's Meta (and somehow despite their awful record of privacy violations), the app gets over 30 million signups.

The internet is controlled by 4 companies and there's nothing we can do about it.

1. Everyone move to Threads

2. Elon is forced to sell Twitter for $50k

3. Everyone leave Threads and go back to Twitter

A new social network from Meta, without any privacy, with algorithms to show us what they want?

No, thanks. I love Mastodon.

I’ve only kept my Twitter because for some reason Britney Spears follows me. I would have gotten rid of it a long time ago before now. I have no interest in Threads. If people like it, great, it’s just not for me.

Bots. Lots and lots of bots.

Am I the only one who finds those numbers abnormally high? The sourcing also seems suspect - going through the verge posts, they're just quoting internal numbers with no sourcing.

Here's my question - it says activated profiles, not 30 million signups. If a large chunk of those are Insta and FB users, it seems more than likely that a lot of those profiles could be activated internally (I work with databases, this could be as easy as changing a 0 to 1 in a field in the profile table if they've got it integrated right). I'm also curious as to the content of the 95 million posts - how many of those are an automated "Hi I'm on threads!" message when the profile starts up?

That being said, I'm not curious nor stupid enough to actually signup and let them Zuck my data, but this smacks of astroturfing.

Like millions of others I went to check it out because the startup of a new social network is exciting.

It sucks. Mostly because of Instagram migration all of the spam and grift is there on day 1.

There's also this fake "positivity" vibe that they're trying to promote that is so fake and shallow with literally zero backup how would it be encouraged or grown despite "be positive" sort of sham messages.

Major disappointment. It literally does nothing new.

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As much as I dislike all the recent twitter changes, this gives Meta even more of a monopoly on social media networks

Another article is claiming it's up to 44 million....

"Instagram could be a primary driver of Threads’ adoption. This is due to a badge assigned underneath your Instagram profile picture with a number. This number denotes your user number on Threads. These are thought to be chronological, with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg holding the coveted “1” badge.

Dexerto has observed that the user numbers have now surpassed 44 million at the time of writing, and it’s likely that as more regions find that the app has launched, this number will continue to rise."

Whenever I hear Threads I can only think of this nightmare fuel

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/

As the numbers get higher, my interest gets less and less.

A good example of the usefulness of social media platforms is tiktok. To start with it was a pointless platform, full of the young and beautiful dancing to shit music. It's still has plenty of that, but if you use the search function it has so reasonable content.

But threads can't be useful yet as nobody has figured out the application yet. Give it six months it might be okay but not yet.

What are usual numbers on Facebook and Instagram? These numbers sound extremely high. Is the app being heavily talked about in your circles?

It's not sign ups "activated profiles". It's people using their same insta account to use Threads.

First it's the number of sign ups, then it's the posts and likes, then it's the number of eyeballs grabbed and the ad revenue. This kind of metric chasing that these platforms encourage is one of the reasons why they become so toxic.