As just about everyone knows, Meta’s Twitter competitor launched last night, and as of this writing, has 30 million users.
I think most people in our corner of the Internet have pretty mixed feelings about it. I love the idea of federated social media, but Mastodon is proving too complex for the masses. Then there is the gatekeeping done by some to keep the platform what they want it to be is a pretty big turn-off for some.
On the other hand, Meta is well… a terrible company with a history of doing terrible things. I think our shared desire to see Elon fail with Twitter is playing into Meta’s hands.
And who knows if Threads will join the fediverse via ActivityPub. They’ve promised support, but it’s already much larger than Mastodon or anything else using the protocol, except maybe for WordPress users who have set things up on their sites correctly. It’s hard to see what Meta gains from using ActivityPub, beyond the obvious and cynical take that it would help them stay out of regulatory hot water. Ahem.
All of that said, most people want to be on a platform with a mix of their friends and favorite content creators and celebrities are. Threads fits that bill. For some of us, that means this new app has a new mix of nerdy Internet friends and people-we-know-in-real-life friends. That’s a bit weird for me, but I’m going to lean into it for now and see where it all goes. I honestly don’t know what I want out of all of this, but at least it’s more fun than watching Twitter burn to the ground.