The Threads Creator Paradox

During the initial release, Threads seemed like a sanitized corporate playground for various big-name organizations to share their slop and promotions. Right now I get a lot of anti-Elon / anti-Twitter slop or political slop despite never engaging with such content. Most of the famous people I follow on Threads are just cross-posting the same content on every major social media platform anyway. I barely know anyone from real life that actually participates on Threads. In general, the tools for discovering interesting or new people don't seem to be there for Threads.

Finally, this current version of Threads is probably the best it's ever going to be. Once enough people are using the platform Zuck is going to start shoving ads down your throat, just like they've done with Instagram.

Edit: Instagram also keeps giving me notifications when certain people make posts on Threads, to try and get me to use the platform more often. And even Threads will randomly send me a notification that Yann LeCun made some post on Threads which it thinks I will really love, despite it being incredibly generic and uninteresting.

I really hope this never happens.

It was one of the key decisions that ruined Twitter as it motivated people towards engagement above all else. Which is why even in sub-communities like startups or tech everyone is posting clickbait and controversial takes.

One of the smartest things Threads has done that is unique is that it rewards users who reply and engage with the community versus posting popular content. It means all of the Instagram influencers have not been able to get much traction.

Is it a ghost town or am I just not the target demographic (what is the target demographic)?

A good summary of why so many competitors fail to reach critical mass

Take Tiktok for example. Now you have the Tiktok Shop 1 in 3 posts is just "I'm sorry to all the people who paid $20 for this $1 piece of junk from Alibaba because it's $10 now" posts. I guess its lucrative but it really lowers the value of posts. "Creators eligible for commision" videos aen't as obnoxious but still aren't great.

Paid partnership videos likewise are 99% hollow and disingenuous.

As a user I've been trained to look at the bottom left and if I see any of these ad signifiers, I just immediately scroll up.

The creator fund tends to work better because it doesn't tend to really change someone's content. That's not strictly true. For example, stitches are ineligible for the creator fund so you'll find those in the fund will just screen grab instead.

But you also hear of cases of creators getting almost shadowbanned while in the creator fund and it's resolved by leaving it. We can only speculate why. Perhaps Tktok decided to push other creators on the the fyp who it thought would genreate better ad revenue. ' But it's so easy to ruin the entire ecosystem with monetization.

Weird story, but when I first used twitter ~2 years ago, it was to follow one specific current event, so my entire feed was one single-issue. I loved it! Over time I've obviously clicked on content on other topics and the feed got all mixed up with 20 different topics, which feels so gross and disorganised.

If anyone remembers 'Zite' app (which unfortunately got acquired and disbanded ~2014), it was basically a bunch of news feeds sorted per topic - super handy at the time for the things I was interested in: I could read 50 notes/articles on blockchain (then in its infancy), then on airbnb, then uber etc. I could read exactly one topic at a time without any distractions mixed in. It felt so organised. I really like single-issue feeds like what tweetdeck is (I think, I don't pay for it).

We can even end up in the situation where both Threads and Twitter collapse and people start to move to Mastodon. That would actually be great. More power to the people!

This kind of thoughtless, evidence-free garbage undermines everything else in the post.