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Most of the 100 Million People Who Signed Up For Threads Stopped Using It (arstechnica.com) 119

Posted by BeauHD from the boom-and-bust dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta's new Twitter competitor, Threads, is looking for ways to keep users interested after more than half of the people who signed up for the text-based platform stopped actively using the app, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told employees in a company town hall yesterday. Threads launched on July 5 and signed up over 100 million users in less than five days, buoyed by user frustration with Elon Musk-owned Twitter.

"Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet," Zuckerberg told employees yesterday, according to Reuters, which listened to audio of the event. Third-party data suggests that Threads may have lost many more than half of its active users. Daily active users for Threads on Android dropped from 49 million on July 7 to 23.6 million on July 14, and then to 12.6 million on July 23, web analytics company SimilarWeb reported.

"We don't yet have daily numbers for iOS, but we suspect the boom-and-bust pattern is similar," SimilarWeb wrote. "Threads took off like a rocket, with its close linkage to Instagram as the booster. However, the developers of Threads will need to fill in missing features and add some new and unique ones if they want to make checking the app a daily habit for users." Although losing over half of the initial users in a short period might sound discouraging, the Reuters article said Zuckerberg told employees that user retention was better than Meta executives expected. "Zuckerberg said he considered the drop-off 'normal' and expected retention to grow as the company adds more features to the app, including a desktop version and search functionality," Reuters wrote.
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Most of the 100 Million People Who Signed Up For Threads Stopped Using It More

Most of the 100 Million People Who Signed Up For Threads Stopped Using It

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  • Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:38PM (#63723224)

    If you are going to do a 'grand opening' of a site, it needs to be compelling. Otherwise, people stop in, look around and then leave forever.

    It's a waste of promo effort. You get one try at this.

    • What do you want, it was just the usual grand opening of something nobody gives a toss about. Everyone came in, ate the free salmon canapes, grabbed all the free goodies and went on, forgetting about the store before even having left.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      If you are going to do a 'grand opening' of a site, it needs to be compelling. Otherwise, people stop in, look around and then leave forever.

      It's a waste of promo effort. You get one try at this.

      Not quite. This isn't some site. This is realestate. 100 million people didn't stop using Threads. 100 million people and corporations staked claim on land which they may use if it becomes something worth using.

      The whole stupidity of the news about threads in the past few weeks was obvious. Most of the signups were not traditional users consuming endless content while sitting on the crapper.

      • That is the same virtual land grab nonsense we heard about the metaverse.

        • Yes. Except it actually makes sense here as there's reason to believe that Threads will not just stick around, but actually be able to reach people, unlike the Metaverse where you're only reaching people with VR headsets and ... people stupid enough to be on the Metaverse.

    • Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @07:02AM (#63723674)

      Which has happened for:
      Mastodon (and everything based on "fediverse" stuff)
      Hive (? Owned by who?)
      Bluesky (also another fediverse)
      MissKey (another fediverse)

      And so forth.

      Threads stumbled out the gate for three reasons
      1. Privacy, goddammit facebook.
      2. Can't use it like twitter (including all the API stuff and NSFW stuff)
      3. No chronological friend feed

      Like so far nobody is in a winning position to take away Twitter's lunch, but It's pretty much looking like Mastodon-like fediverse stuff is just kinda doomed because people don't want silo'd data. What's ultimately going to happen I predict is that threads will probably appeal to people who use instagram and facebook already, but it won't pull very many people off twitter. Bluesky will pull people off twitter, but it needs to actually function more like twitter first, which it doesn't.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        Mastodon, the platform of choice for pedos apparently, FBI just carried away an entire Mastodon cluster.
        Never heard of Hive
        BlueSky by chief liar Dorsey whose former practices were thoroughly exposed leading to congressional investigations, where the documentation clearly says everything that would allow for collaboration or third party apps (transfer of user accounts, servers talking to each other, an API) doesn’t exist yet.
        Never heard of MissKey but I’m assuming it suffers from the same problem

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Bluesky seems to be doing okay, but only because you can't sign up without an invite. They are letting notable accounts in first, and the handing out invites to people who follow those accounts, ensuring engagement.

        That was Facebook's mistake with Threads. People wanted it to be the new Twitter, like the old Twitter back when there were good communities and content there. But it wasn't that, the communities didn't immediately reform, and a lot of people were excluded too (like the whole of Europe).

      • Maybe they should rename it to Y and typosquat people who can't spell X, that'd get them a user or two.

      • While I don't have any Meta accounts, the whole idea that getting banned on Threads could directly impact my Instagram account is a nonstarter.

        Instagram seems like a great way to self advertise and post pictures and what not. If I want to run my mouth and say stupid shit, why should that stop me from posting my pictures on an entirely different site?

        Just glad I'm not involved with any of that stuff, so it's not a concern for me.

        P.S. If I run my mouth and the public wants to stop going to look at my pictures

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z80a ( 971949 )

        At least none of those were actively trying to make it as worst as possible from the get go as threads did.
        The usual cycle is having a good service at first, then feature creep, greed and just overall tone deaf decisions ultimately ruining the service at a point even normal people start to notice.

    • Re: Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)

      by anonymouscoward52236 ( 6163996 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @08:12AM (#63723748)

      "If you are going to do a 'grand opening' of a site"

      What site? You mean app? Threads is app-only. That means you must open up your mic, camera, location, etc to Zuckerberg. Lol. Who wants that turd? Also, I don't get what it adds that Facebook doesn't already have?

      • "If you are going to do a 'grand opening' of a site"

        What site? You mean app? Threads is app-only. That means you must open up your mic, camera, location, etc to Zuckerberg. Lol. Who wants that turd? Also, I don't get what it adds that Facebook doesn't already have?

        I didn't "open up" any of those things. However, Threads right now seems like just a worse version of Instagram.

  • "buoyed by user frustration with Elon Musk-owned Twitter."? Sorry, I don't see it. To me it's better then ever.

  • I think that's to be expected. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hans Lehmann ( 571625 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:48PM (#63723230)
    A new piece of software comes with lots of media hype, many people download and install it just to see what the hype is about, and then many of those people decide it just wasn't for them and they drop it. I would have been surprised if this wasn't the case in this instance.

  • lurkers (Score:5, Funny)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:48PM (#63723232)

    100M lurkers do not make a social media site. They must all be waiting for someone to show up and do cool things to entertain them.

    • Re:lurkers (Score:5, Funny)

      by Nighttime ( 231023 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @04:45AM (#63723546) Homepage Journal

      Yes, but enough about Slashdot...

    • 100M lurkers do not make a social media site. They must all be waiting for someone to show up and do cool things to entertain them.

      Perhaps some bombastic political types could show up, or perhaps they could allow free speech and exciting debate, or ...

      Oh ... never mind :)

    • My thought too. If 90% of the early sign ups were lurkers, waiting for somebody else to post and entertain them, there's very little new content going up. Soon, the lurkers get bored and go away, making Threads look like a complete disaster before it has time to get off the ground.

  • Not bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:49PM (#63723234) Homepage Journal

    It was a bad fit for Instagram so 12 million daily active is rather good for a new site.

    • It is a laughable idea to pair with instagram. If it only had an opt-in to instagram features instead then maybe it would have worked? I go to twitter to specifically avoid that sort of memied up tripe.

      • It is a laughable idea to pair with instagram.

        Not at all. Why would one company run multiple separate social media accounts. The only reason Instagram wasn't paired with Facebook account in the first place is that it was bought from a 3rd party and the results couldn't be reconciled.

        There's zero reason for a company to offer a service to talk and a service to post pictures and keep them separate.

        • Anecdotally, my daughters do not use their FB accounts for much, but post pics on Instagram. Mostly really high-up selfies with cleavage, but whatever...

          My ex-wife used her Instagram account to get on a TV show by showing pictures and data that never would have ended up on her FB account.

          Ergo, the inherent limitations of Instagram are great for chicks.

  • It's NOT a selling point.

    And the people who came in, expecting the draconian censorship, came in expecting it for everyone BUT themselves.

    And when it applied to them too, they found they didn't like it very much...

    • It's NOT a selling point. ...

      I think Ron DeSantis is learning about something like that.
      It's not Twitter, but starts with a "T". Let me think... :-)

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 )

        Ron DeSantis learning about something?

        Now THAT would be a selling point. Can it do other miracles, too?

  • Need a web app (Score:3)

    by kyoko21 ( 198413 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:54PM (#63723240)

    I'd use it more if there was a web app.

    • I might try it if it were a web site. (Who uses web apps anymore? You know that is a specific thing, right?)

      But also, if Threads has some special feature, why don't they just glob it onto Facebook? Why carve out another cave that users have to join?

  • It will definitely suck after monetization. And seriously Zuck, if you think a desktop app is going to bring people in you are up in the night. I'm sure there are a few dumb investors that believe this will work.

  • There's a definite takeaway here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @11:24PM (#63723266)

    A decent third alternative is needed. As Musk continues to wreck Twitter and Zuckerberg finds it impossible to hide his greed for long enough to give his fledgling competitor even a ghost of a chance, it would be wonderful to see an open source, mega-donor funded alternative emerge. It would take millions of dollars, but not billions.

    I'd love to see Zuckerberg and Musk in a fight to the death with chain saws, and both of them lose. If they could both cut Bezos to ribbons first to prove they were serious, this would be my died-and-gone-to-heaven version of Squid Games.

    • I find it somewhat interesting that, at least right now, the stated intention is for Threads to be interoperable with Mastodon.

      https://9to5google.com/2023/07... [9to5google.com]

    • The hard bit might be to convince a mega-donor why to throw a load of money behind an open-source Twittter clone that he can't properly control, data mine and monetize after dumping that money on it.

      • I'm not particularly optimistic, but based on the number of people who have put their names on the wing of a hospital or university, the simple desire to leave behind some kind of legacy might be enough. Having one's name on an open source app plus some kind of foundation dedicated to running it and subsequent innovations as a public domain/creative commons could be a decent incentive.

        • I think we're a bit too early for something like that. That might fly with billionaires that built their empire on the internet who understand that a legacy doesn't necessarily require brick and mortar, but they are still a decade or two away from seeing the end of their life looming and trying to build something that survives them.

          • You're probably right about that. It does seem to be old folks who are concerned with what they're going to leave behind.

    • Zuckerberg finds it impossible to hide his greed for long enough to give his fledgling competitor even a ghost of a chance

      In what way? You seem to be under the impression that 100million users left threads. No 100million people initially staked claim to virtual land in the form of a user name. Very few people actually gave threads any kind of meaningful use yet which is expected, social networks don't magically get this big overnight.

    • I'd love to see Zuckerberg and Musk in a fight to the death with chain saws, and both of them lose. If they could both cut Bezos to ribbons first to prove they were serious, this would be my died-and-gone-to-heaven version of Squid Games.

      You forgot to invite Larry Ellison and Darl McBride to the party...

    • But even if the decent third alternative is the most wonderful app and delivers the most amazing UX in the world, it isn't going to do anything.

      Threads had an easy way in; all those Instagram users who could easily try this new thing out. We all joined, had a look around and then forgot about it.

      Mastodon (or a commercialised version of it) is probably doing most of the things a decent third alternative should do. But it's never going to achieve critical mass. It's filled mostly with all the people who proud

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by hunter44102 ( 890157 )
      Twitter is better than it ever has been

    • It would take millions of dollars, but not billions.

      This is the problem. I don't know any web developers or business managers lean and efficient enough to run on that kind of budget.

      I mean, if you need a meg of Javascript per page view and a whole datacenter to run the equivalent of a text messaging service, you're doing something wrong. My first BBS was written in Perl, ran on a Pentium4, and served a community of ~5,000 members.

      • Too bad we're not allowed to moderate comments on our own stuff. I'd definitely give you a plus one for an interesting perspective that's outside my own expertise.

  • No website (Score:4, Interesting)

    by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Friday July 28, 2023 @11:55PM (#63723296)

    Sorry can't be bothered to transfer photos to my phone from my desktop just to post them. Way too many hops to put in an effort. I don't use Twitter either, it was a waste of time really.

  • I saw the hype, wanted to try it. All I got was some notification that it was not available in my country.

    Probably because their privacy policies are shit, or they just donâ(TM)t care about my region to bother supporting it. I didnâ(TM)t get sn explanation.

    Since then I havenâ(TM)t heard about anything interesting happening there, and Iâ(TM)ve completely lost interest in trying it.

  • Saturated market - bored of it all (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @03:14AM (#63723462)

    We reached "peak" social media years back, it just seems big tech never actually realised it.
    Not so much flogging a dead horse, as trying to add more horses to a one horse race.

    The same reason that nobody can create a "facebook killer" is the same reason nobody can create a "twitter killer" - the market is saturated and familiarity is very difficult to change.

    Why would someone with thousands of followers shift to another platform and then hope all their followers will ... follow suit?
    Why would someone who was never interested in Twitter or gave it up years ago, now want to use something like Threads?

    In the early days of twitter, many people joined and had a go with it - but I guess many people aren't complete narcissists and soon grew tired of telling people what they are doing or chasing "followers" - to what end?
    I can understand why celebs and companies may wish to have this kind of voice - even though it's a double-edged sword - but for the average person?

    For most people, private messaging is where it's at these days - and Twitter has just become a place where the media enjoy jerking off in public.

    Saturated, boring and narcissistic.

  • Not 100 million users (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @03:22AM (#63723480)

    100 million land deeds for virtual online real estate. There's a reason that Threads had the most account registrations in such a short time in history and that is 100% to do with ... It's 2023. New thing come along, brands and people who are interested in their username will sign up just to stake their claim at a piece of potential online persona. A large portion of the initial signups are also brands laying claim to trademarks.

    Disclosure: I have a Threads account. I have not used it once since I registered. I just didn't want another idiot pretending they are me which has happened a few times already.

    • Re:Not 100 million users (Score:4, Insightful)

      by christoban ( 3028573 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @04:24AM (#63723530)

      I thought it was because it is so trivially easy to see a link to Threads from Facebook, and click it.

      FB heavily advertised it and made signup automatic or single click.

      • Everyone heavily advertises all sorts of shit that people largely ignore. Advertising alone would count for Instagram or Twitters growth, reaching hundreds of millions of signups over period of *years*.

        Digital land claiming has nothing to do with Facebook, and there was an abundance of evidence that on the first weekend the majority of accounts were signed up by PR departments for corporations and brands, as well as people whose job it is to communicate (actors, writers, news reporters, etc).

        What has change

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by niff ( 175639 )

      I’m the real thegarbz.

      Don’t believe anyone else who is claiming to be.

      • Well no you're Niff, simply saying you're someone else doesn't make it so.
        If on the other hand you were the guy who did register the user name I wanted to sign up to Slashdot with then you not only have a point, you'd be a direct example of my fundamental point.
        If you're the guy who plays world of warcraft (a game I hate) with the same username as I use on Steam you'd equally be making the point.

        It's 2023. You should sign up to Threads with a throwaway email address using the username Niff, even if you don'

  • No point in hopping from one totalitarian company to the next. Use an open protocol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • When threads first "came out", I read in a review how brilliant it was and this was not good. I have noticed in everything from movies to games that what the reviewers love has a good chance of being awful.

    The thing that really put me off was the observation that it would be brilliant for innovators. That settled it, Mastodon it is then!

    • Offtopic but if you are in the UK maybe you should change your sig.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gonoff ( 88518 )

        I suspect the king is not as good at cards as his mother who, again, was not as good as her mother.

        Fair comment though.

  • ... is to feel like you are in an exciting place where you can either hear new things or where cool debates can take place.

    By definition, a "we censor better" place is not going to be that.

    At least, on a day to day, ongoing basis that's the point. I mean sure, it feels good for five minutes or so to say "I'm sticking it to Musk and those knuckle draggers!" But then it gets kinda boring.

  • Twitter (X ?) wins since you don't need an app to get to it. You can get to it with any web browser on any device with one. When Threads is similarly accessible, I might give it a shot but not until then.

  • Missing Basic Functionality? (Score:3)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @09:07AM (#63723802)

    Zuckerberg said "there's still a lot of basic functionality to build" for Threads

    I guess I'm not a billionaire tech entrepreneur. But if I have the resources of Meta, and I know every Twitter alternative instantly gets a huge initial surge in interest, then why not give my team a few extra weeks, even months, in order to finish all of the basic functionality?

    Like there's some features that are only going to become obvious once people start using it, but Meta isn't some startup who needs to shove out an MVP before they burn through their funding, they should have been able to launch with a fairly complete* product.

    * I didn't hear anything about servers getting overwhelmed by the big initial surge so they apparently aced the load testing.

  • I'm sorry if this is against the rules but I'm going to paste my comment from the last article about Threads failing to create active users:


    "Ya, everyone made an account because it was easy and then realized you can't control your feed or search in any meaningful way. So because of the landrush from marketers, the only thing users were seeing was a wall full of spam, reactions to the spam and the fake memes about how much better threads was then twitter.

    I think this is bigger than one platform or

  • ...how could every major media organization (CNN, NYT, BBC, etc) who insisted that Threads was absolutely crushing Twitter, be wrong?

    You know, the same way they talked about (ha ha lol) Mastodon.

  • I discovered that it was mobile only
    This is unacceptable

  • Threads is just rando people (Score:3)

    by Berkyjay ( 1225604 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @11:44AM (#63724018)

    I signed up after the Twitter logo switch. I migrated all my Instagram follows into it yet my entire feed was just random accounts that I never followed. That was a full stop for me. So as long as FB is insisting on showing me content I don't want to see then Threads will sit in the closet.

  • surprising? (Score:3)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Saturday July 29, 2023 @11:57AM (#63724056)

    So, people and bots signed up to see what's there, looked around, found next to nothing, and went back to their lives.

  • ... bat-shit insane than launching a Twitter competitor as app-only, is to launch it only in some regions worldwide, and not all at once. This thing deserves to fail, hard.
  • Ask me if I worry about 100 million bots falling off the ladder.

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