https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/07/threads-shopping-mall-not-a-public-square/
With its new Twitter competitor Threads, Meta could stand to learn from from both recent and ancient history.
It's really interesting to see, that all these Megacorps are apparently completely unable to see, what actual people actually want. Especially Meta seems to be hellbent to press everyone in their schemata, and fails constantly.
But do they? Meta is absolutely raking in cash, so they're obviously doing something that users engage with.
What users want and what makes money are often at odds.
I'm talking about their new apps. Like Threads, Metaverse...
Facebook, Instagram, and even YouTube only work on momentum. Facebook is clearly running out of steam and lost almost all relevance in the younger (that is, under 50) population. Instagram can still catch a large audience, but the young people already switched to TikTok.
All in all, the old cash cows are slowly drying up and there's nothing new coming.
Yeah, Zuckerberg wasted a ton of time and money on the Metaverse stuff, but they're still insanely profitable and they seem to be turning it around. I'm not happy about that because I was hoping they'd fade away to irrelevance, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Notice that neither twitter nor meta want to put in the work to moderate a political social network.
2 main issues I have with Threads right now -
I don't think it's in its final form.
It's obvious that brands and influencers were offered the chance to be pre-verified and, while I haven't seen direct evidence myself, the word is that they could get some kind of FB/insta promotional discounts by being there to post on day 0 with a witty canned line about how great it was to be on threads
So when the app opened to the masses, they don't have to follow anybody or wait for their friends before it had "value". They open it up and there are a bunch of brands and "personalites" making it looking like it's already alive and the place to be
The other stuff will probably come later... although there's the chance that they're going after tiktoks model of "we know what you want"
Yes, and after such valuable discussion on Twitter such as "How much do Jews control the world: completely or just excessively?", a little vapid inanery with a side of brands doesn't sound so bad.
It's just Instagram without images. It'll be influencers and meme accounts, for better or worse.
For better. 90% of Twitter's and Facebook's toxicity comes from political disputes.
I haven't seen that kind of toxicity in instagram, only the "look at my perfect life" toxicity, which isn't as bad. At least they are cool pics.
If I had to pick my poison, I'd pick Threads and Instagram. Thankfully, I don't have to.
Yeah I view it as negative but closer to neutral. Hopefully the "look at my perfect life" posts are understood as being fake or requiring inheriting great wealth by now.
