Introducing Ads in Threads | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Ads in Threads

facebook.com

26 pointsjohnneville15 comments

a....hahahaha?

the only way i interact with any facebook property is still with instagram and only through my safari browser running a plethora of adblocks that sometime give me connection issues -- probably 30% of the time i can't log in -- which is fine and forces me into a break.

i downloaded the app once because i had to reverify myself for reasons above, and it felt like i saw 5 ads, or suggested posts for people that i don't follow for every single picture from someone that i actually care about. most of the crap was videos, and i guess i'm old school and still only use/care for instagram as a photo utility.

when the browser trick with adblocker stops working i'll probably leave instagram for ever, i'm already half out the door.

i honestly don't understand how people tolerate such terrible experience and how they can have XXX million active users, don't people have some esthetic integrity?

I agree completely with what you've said.

I installed Instagram about 2 years ago and I couldn't bear the number of posts from authors that I did not know about on the main timeline. The point of Instagram for me is to see my friends' pictures.

I uninstalled the app but only use the webapp to send messages to friends every now and then. I was thinking "maybe Instagram Lite is the answer", but it turns out it's the complete opposite; no messaging features, only timeline for doomscrolling.

We are calling it "social" media, but it sure isn't being social with friends. Can't monetize that.

You shouldn't use multiple adblockers. They tend to interfere with eachother in unexpected ways.

Privacy Badger, PiHole, UBlock, Ghostery, Facebook Container, and Canvas Blocker all work together on firefox to keep my computing so ad free that if it weren't for federated social media I wouldn't even know what movies are coming out.

I can count on 1 hand the number of pages that have failed because of this combo and every single one of them are guilty of using a JS plugin that requires Chrome in order to function for some dumb reason, and I keep a copy of chrome around for those specific websites.

Why is Meta the company using facebook.com domain? meta.com doesn’t work? Maybe Meta is a temporary name? Shady AF.

As a metaphysician, I would say that they do not own the rights to use that name.

Technically, Threads uses ActivityPub and is federated with other Mastodon instances (and technically the rest of the fediverse that haven't federated from Meta).

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-thr...

I suppose the ads are mostly displayed through the Threads app and web server? Otherwise I don't see the Fediverse taking it kindly with being polluted with ads from Meta.

It looks like ads generally are posts from business accounts that then get a sponsored badge and some promotion among feeds. From a fediverse perspective, you won't see them unless you follow the pizza hut threads feed (to use a random example.)

I'm just staying away from any Meta consumer facing products at this point. It's like self flagellation.

We all knew it was coming. Real question is will people leave or roll over and accept it? I expect the latter.

Maybe with federation it’s easier to move about but laziness seems to win every time sadly.

Of course. With 100% certainty. [0]

Now that Meta is going to place ads in Threads (unsurprisingly) which is an unfavourable change, lets see where the users who don't like this migrate to other platforms or just don't care enough to leave.

Always as expected.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36637185

Is it still rapidly growing? Threads initially attracted people who are now leaving.

Keep in mind, for several years their metrics showed a "pivot to video" that was entirely fictional. Never trust what they say about their numbers.

Great, at least with ads there will be some posts in the network.

I'm surprised they have over 300 million users. I've never met a single (non online) person who uses it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com