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Comment by JoshGlazebrook | Hacker News Reader

Honestly this is what I think everyone has wanted for a while. It's a stripped down version of Twitter from years ago without any of the nonsense and ads, and a straightforward ui/ux. And it already has your profile information from Instagram and everyone you already follow and/or friends with so there is little to no setup required which makes the onboarding essentially one or two taps.

edit: and yes I know the irony of "no ads or nonsense" (yet), but as a way of getting people to join (in the near term) its a pro.

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What makes you think they aren't going to put ads in shortly? They are most likely trying to entice people to sign-up and will, once they get to a critical mass of engaged users, add them in.

When someone gives you free ice cream, do you eat and enjoy or wring your hands that they might charge for it in the future?

Of course it will get ads. Nobody expects otherwise. But right now, under the deal that is, it’s interesting enough to try.

Yea. The same scheme heroin dealers use.

That's a pretty problematic analogy.

When someone says he will publish your book and pay you but once the book is popular he will stick his content in the middle of it and redesign it...

I don't know if ice cream is the best metaphor. You obtain the ice cream, you eat the ice cream, you excrete the ice cream. End of saga. But social media is something you invest time and information in. You build a reputation, you form relationships with others, yada yada. You don't just stop eating the ice cream like you haven't made any commitment.

It's not free ice cream, it's free cigarettes.

... you lick the ice cream for a few minutes every day while your friends watch from a distance, the ice cream company monitors your behaviour and creates a profile of you.

It’s a perfect metaphor.

Also, after a few years, the metaphorical ice cream looks exactly like the real ice cream would.

It would be more accurate to say that after a few years, you have forgotten what real ice cream is like and subsist on the metaphorical one.

Or more accurately, the meth-aphorical one.

As sores and other health issues appear you remind yourself that the ice cream still delivers some good things, and your friends will only spend time with you if you all eat the same ice cream.

The last decade has taught us to expect enshittification and we can only be left to wonder how quickly they'll execute on that process. How terrible can they make the product, without you leaving, is the min/max profitability optimization.

I won't eat free anything anywhere because I don't want to give something else up in exchange.

Free ice cream is the wrong metaphor. Think more in terms of cheese and mouse trap.

from theverge's interview with adam mosseri

>And I assume you’ll have a similar monetization model? There will eventually be ads in there as well?

>If we are successful, if we make something that lots of people love and keep using, we will, I’m sure, monetize it. And I would be confident that the business model will be ads.

There are no stupid questions but, really? Subsidize it and then, bam! another instagram? They'll have to add photos and videos, right? Are they going to canibalize ig too?

Bet money they'll integrate it to ig in a couple years.

Twitter's revenue is pretty small compared to Meta's. In order for Meta to actually value the revenue generated they'll want active users to reach what Twitter had at it's peak. That's not going to be this year. And the app will have to be fantastic from a user experience point of view for awhile to grow enough to get there.

So yea, duh, Meta will monetize it. But it'll be an app hellbent on growing while being subsidized by Meta until then.

I wonder how much this will cannibalize Instagram's engagement-share and thus eat away at Instagram's margins due to lack of ads. By going to Threads, I feel like I've sort of checked off that "I've visited Instagram" desire in my brain.

Site so far seems broken in Firefox with tracking protection set to Strict which I'm positive is not a harbinger of things to come.

> I think everyone has wanted for a while.

> And it already has your profile information from Instagram.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Don't know if I consider "not having ads until people become dependant on it" a pro.

> It's a stripped down version of Twitter from years ago without any of the nonsense and ads

Hold my beer...

An information feed from the same people who have a demonstrated history of unethically manipulating their users [1] is something no one wants.

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...

>And it already has your profile information from Instagram

Except that I don't have an Instagram profile because Meta social media networks are not a thing that I actually want to be on.

The API was one of the things that made Twitter special. I don't know of any public information about Meta's API plans for this.

This thing where people basically say

"I know they are only doing this for right now to get me roped in, but it's sure nice to not have to look at ads"

is frankly quite disturbing.

A bit like celebrating when the guy who does all the whipping gets a new whip which is currently softer than the old one, so the whippings aren't quite so bad for a while.

They are going to put ads asap because they dont want users to experience non ads version and get used to it.

That's fb core business: ads. Do you seriously think this "new" platform won't be getting ads? C'mon man.

The technology really doesn't matter that much, it's the network where the real value is.

And I don't see how the Twitter network overlaps with the Instagram network. Instagram is more of a celebrity network, while Twitter an industry network.

i signed up but idk if i'll use it much. most are just reposted content and the usual corporate social media accounts.

Yeah, I'm sure there won't be ads for at least (checks watch) a few more hours.

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