Why I'm not going to use Threads (for now, at least)

[andrewducker]

I mostly automate my existence on social networks when I join them. It's how I get my start on them, before I really care. Chucking out a few interesting links each day gets me a base level of interaction, helps me find new people who find similar things interesting, and helps build up some kind of "home" on a given site. It's how I got started on Twitter, and then on Mastodon. Without that I wouldn't actually visit the sites at all, at least to start with.

So when Threads came along I quickly grabbed my user name, but then instantly ran out of a reason to visit the site. My friends weren't really posting on there, and I wasn't willing to take on the effort of posting to a new site unless I was going to get something positive back (which especially wasn't going to happen with an algorithmic feed that shoved brands in my face but nothing actually interesting).

Fingers crossed that there will be an API at some point. Or that Threads will federate (as they've said they will), and so I can follow any of my friends that are there. But without either of those, or all other options dying off, I can't see a good reason to use it.

(And I'm not surprised that its number of active users has halved.)

Comments

[movingfinger]

The algorithm being the only way to run a feed showed that this is not at all intended to be anything but advertising.

[draigwen]

I haven't been on any social networks in years but when someone in a boardgame community mentioned threads I joined up. After lots of muting and befriending fellow boardgamers I now rarely see anything I want to and I'm actually feeling involved in a community for the first time in forever. Probably helps that I've now got a specific reason for joining in and so I'm not joining it aimlessly, and I'm involved in a community I feel I can contribute too - I've never had this on social media before.

That said, the app should have been set up from the start to allow for better curating of content rather than having to wait

[andrewducker]

I'm really glad it's working for you

[fub]

In anticipation of Threads being federated, I had already silenced Threads on my Mastodon instance, based on Meta's history of moderation. And indeed: nobody needs LibsOfTikTok being able to contact them unprovoked.
And then, based on the knowledge that Threads is not available to EU citizens, I am assuming that Threads is a horrible invasion of privacy, and I decided that we would be better off not interacting with it. So I (pre-emptively) defederated from Threads.

It's a pity, I think it would have been cool to be able to interact with people on Threads, but the decisions made by Meta have made that impossible for me.