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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

> Threads failed the smell test early on because it started out with algorithmic feed

That was probably a wise decision to seed it with something for people to look at and interact with so they didn't just sign in and see a blank page. The random influencers and other people "go away" pretty quickly if you start following and interacting with people you care more about.

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A common complaint with Threads was that, no after who you blocked or muted, it's near impossible to get away from a feed filled with influencers and common celebrity gossip nonsense. That seems to be part of the ongoing design intent - not just an aspect of how they wanted to bootstrap the service.

A few days ago they introduced a 'following' feed. They seem pretty intent on iterating quickly on it.

And even without that, the influencers mostly went away for me when I followed people I found more interesting.

> a feed filled with influencers and common celebrity gossip

And marketers. Remember: marketers ruin everything. They early adopt every up-and-coming platform and fill it with grifty posts.

The empty timeline problem is a completely different problem of an algorithmic timeline of not people you follow.

Hell, it required an Instagram account to sign up. You already have their follow graph.

Agree, they rolled out the "Following" tab and it's a ghost town. Shipping it with the algorithmic feed at least made it look like a lively, if somehwat chaotic place.

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