Instagram Threads is looking a little threadbare

Good day all. About a month ago. Mark Zuckerberg released his “Twitter Killer” app called Threads. It apparently ties into your Instagram account. Very quickly, over 100 million people signed up for it.

However, there were a few rather nasty bugs, some of which would delete your Instagram account if you deleted a message. (That was fixed very quickly I understand) However, another bug, as it were, has reared it’s ugly head. Boredom. Now usage is off over 70%. Here are the details from Outkick:

It’s been less than a month since Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta introduced its “Threads” social media app and already things are starting to significantly slow down.

The Instagram-affiliated app came out to mass appeal as over 100 million people initially downloaded the Twitter-like text app in the first few days. However, data analysis shows that many users aren’t returning – and if they are, they are doing it for much less of a time.

After the initial massive surge of 100+ million, Threads daily active users has now dropped by 70%, according to market data firm Sensor Tower. Perhaps even worst – those that are still using the app appear to be bored – with time spent on the app dropping from an average of 19 to just 4 minutes per day. By comparison, Twitter averages 200+ million daily users with an average retainer time of 30 minutes.

I do have an Instagram account, but only to follow a few people. I post nothing to it. Regarding Threads, it’s a Zuckerberg deal which means it’s a security and privacy nightmare, so I gave it a hard pass. I suspect a lot of people saw it and thought “Oh look! It’s shiny and new!” Then the newness wore off, rapidly it seems and people tossed it.

Yes, even though some people claim to be so mad at Elon Musk, many of those same people are still tweeting on his platform realizing that they are not getting the same engagement on Zuckerberg’s Threads app.

It’s the social media version of always going back to an ex-partner after a relationship. No matter how hard people are trying to “quit Twitter,” they are so crazed and obsessed that they are still viewing the platform, at least for now.

I have a Twitter, now X account. (Elon is rebranding and is feeding the bird to his cat) I also have a Truth Social account, Gab and GETTR accounts. I’ve seen the number of people “Friend” me on twitter go up and down, with a lot of the new people looking a lot like bots. Gettr and Gab are odd ducks and I get a lot of retruth’s on Truth Social. Parler is, of course, dead, buried and forgotten.

A major problem with Meta is the fact that it’s… Meta.

The new Threads app has also faced criticism for it’s data privacy issues. The European Union has straight up banned Threads from being downloaded over Meta security concerns. They’ve even stopped people from using VPNs to connect to the app. Oh and if that wasn’t enough… YOU LITERALLY CAN NOT GET RID OF IT ONCE YOU DOWNLOAD IT. (Unless you delete your entire Instagram account) Yikes!

I think that they have fixed that issue. Of course, since I don’t have threads and won’t be downloading it…ever, that won’t be an issue. As for the Instagram account? As I mentioned, I only use it to follow a few people and if the account were deleted, I could create a new one with no loss of content, since I don’t put any up.

Although Threads saw initial success in the early days of its launch, while at the same time Twitter’s web traffic was down 5%, Twitter has since recovered while Threads continues to fall.

It’s “X” now, not Twitter. Elon finally got fed up and fed the Blue Bird of Happiness to his pet cat, Morris. Zuckface has said that he expected some user losses as people logged in to take a look and then dropped. He’s also saying that they’re in the early stages with Threads. This is true of course. The issue that Zuckface isn’t considering is why would anyone want to use Threads when there are other, and honestly, better and more secure socialist media tools out there.

I’ve argued that it simply comes down to this basic premise: Instagram is used primarily by people who take photos and don’t want to write. People that want to write use Twitter. That’s what made the two platforms different. To automatically assume everyone that is obsessed with photo filters is going to suddenly want to be talkative on a consistent basis may have been a little bit of a stretch.

It’s not a stretch so much as it’s not going to happen. People who want to “Chat” are going to go with Twitter. Those who have issues with Twitter’s, granted improving, tendency to squash free speech, particularly of moderate to conservative people are going to head over to Trump’s Truth Social. I suspect that Threads will stumble along for a bit and then be quietly shut down.

Thatisall

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~The Angry Webmaster~