@Salvo
@aussie.zoneThe claim by Meta that “they don’t have any Ex-Twitter employees working on Threads” is just the icing on the Schadenfreude cake.
It is a much better (and more honest) way to manipulate users using the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Instead of blackmailing Mods to stay by saying “you have invested a lot of your time into this subreddit, it would be a shame if something would happen to it”, they could say to users “you are already paying for the ability to use Reddit, you might as well use Reddit”.
“I wouldn’t use the piece-of-shit first-party App, even if you paid me!”
“What if we pay you?”
“…”
I think the that death of Reddit also contributes to Threads (apparent) popularity.
I do still think that someone should be able to leverage Mastodon to make a Threads clone for the European Market.
Step 1: Create a whole lot of European instances called something like “OpenThreads.it” and “OpenThreads.de”, etc.
Step 2: Pay TapBots to maintain a branded variant of Ivory called something like OpenThreads (or whatever). Include App advertising and provide a Subscription option to remove ads. Step 2a: Pay Imgur or whoever to host your users photos and videos.
Step 3: Regional native-language advertising through mainstream channels, Grassroots word of mouth and Astroturfing.
Step 4: Federate with as many friendly Mastodon instances as possible. Federate with Threads as well, until they change their minds and cause you of stealing their customers.
Step 5: Expand onto regions that are currently being serviced by threads, promising access to other OpenThreads users in Europe.
The only thing complicated about signing up for Mastodon (and Lemmy) is choice of instance.
Some people need that choice made for them, even though it does not practically matter. Most instances federate with content on other instances and it is possible to migrate your content to an new instance if you change your mind in the future.
Fortunately there are regional instances for both for me so it was pretty much a no-brainer for me to use aus.social and aussie.zone
I think that Lemmy does need more of the right exposure.
If you search for any Lemmy content on Google or Duck-Duck-Go, you don’t get any good results. This is probably because most people use Apps or secure browsers that don’t allow tracking.
Maybe Duck-Duck-Go need to have a !bang search modifier for Lemmy. https://duckduckgo.com/bangs
Android Auto is being removed as well. They are implementing a forked-Android-based interface that is incompatible with mainstream Android.
Imagine new GM EVs as the FaceBook or Amazon Fire phones with 4 wheels and a marginally more reliable battery.
Someone needs to create some European Mastodon instances with names like “OpenThread[.de|.it|.fr]” and market it as an alternative to Meta Threads.
They can create a proper grassroots marketing campaign and offer federation with other ActivityPub instances.
The problem with Mastodon adoption by the mainstream is the tyranny of choice. Normies want to be told which instance to sign up for, they don’t want to have to make the decision themselves. This is the only reason people think that signing up for Mastodon is difficult.
Most jurisdictions have either already introduced, or in the process of introducing laws that restrict what you can do with your phone whilst driving. Some have higher penalties for distracted driving than drink driving or speeding!
If you do want Wireless CarPlay, there are cheap USB dongles available that may work to adapt your factory Car Audio to enable it. They are also useful as an alternative if your older car radio is unable to provide sufficient current for your newer device to charge.