I predicted Google+ would (or could) succeed. Why? Because Google already had access to our social graph, through Gmail. It failed.
Meta also has access to social graphs through Instagram – does it follow that Threads will succeed because of that? No. Will it also fail because Google+ failed? No.
But it will fail unless Meta learns (lol) what Google didn’t, and what they’ve already failed to learn on previous product launches: that the social graph isn’t static but dynamic, and they it also includes both cruft (old, now inessential connections) and frivolity (people, or accounts, that we follow for fun in one context but don’t really care about). As discussed on the Vergecast, Meta did make the right move in not basing the social graph for Threads on Facebook, which even it has to know is full of what basically amount to broken links. But they’re not alone – Twitter, even pre-Elon, was taking on a similar feel, with a lot of existing linkages and dominant voices coasting on inertia but not being currently essential in the same way. Instagram is a main source of connection for many, but for most, I’d argue it’s a source of passive entertainment or at least pleasant-enough distraction – these are not necessarily your emergency contacts (though they may be in there, somewhere – and many aren’t there at all).
Does Meta know the difference between these kinds of connections? I think they’d say they do, that our behavior is revealed preference, but I’m not sure. IG shows you what you engage with, yes, but also pushes you to engage with the algorithmically determined “stickiest” content – building a self-similarity into everyone’s social graph, with content made to meet those specs churning in an endless tautology.
All of these links in a given social graph are contextual and may or may not map directly into a social graph with different underlying context, fulfilling different underlying needs. Do I “really” want to read text from a cloyingly cynical cute cat account? Probably not! But mapping IG’s social graph to threads, including both connections and suggestions, means I’ll be opted into a system that thinks I want to.
Jason Gilbert nails the vibes, and the trajectory:
What does Threads feels like?
Threads feels like when a local restaurant you enjoy opens a location in an airport.
It feels like a Twitter alternative you would order from Brookstone.
It feels like if an entire social network was those posts that tell you what successful entrepreneurs do before 6AM.
It feels like watching a Powerpoint from the Brand Research team where they tell you that Pop Tarts is crushing it on social.
It feels like Casual Friday on LinkedIn.
Will Threads last? I don’t know. It is an app stuffed with verified users I’ve never heard of who have 7 million YouTube subscribers. They all do Epic Pranks and they spread Positive Vibes and they Don’t Talk Politics Here.
And similarly, others have pointed out that the Good Internet is there the freaks and weirdos hang, and that the (mostly accidental) trajectory of Twitter as the place where freaks and weirdos hung out – and seeded the culture to make everyone a bit more of a freak and a weirdo (also unhappy, etc.) – was what made Twitter special, for a little while.
Threads will never be fun, it will never be weird – as Gilbert notes, its culture is being seeded by the winners and dominant presences of a separate social platform with its own established culture. Will it succeed? Maybe. There have been plenty of times in our culture where the fun and weird was purged from the mainstream. Mark Zuckerberg has a vision of culture that is not fun, that is not weird, but that is deeply prudish and misogynistic (as Taylor Lorenz notes – no [women’s] nips on Threads); it’s disconnected from the material circumstances of our world (Meta is currently threatening to remove all news links from Canadian Facebook). His vision of the world is happy-clappy, PG-rated soft focus positivity, with those who transgress thrown out of the garden with extreme prejudice, little explanation, and no recourse. We’ve certainly been in a similar place before, and maybe we’ll be there again (maybe we’re already there!).
But I hope one thing that comes out of this disruption is the freaks and the weirdos getting back to making their own fun, in their own spaces, for their own reasons. I don’t think that happens on a social media platform – or at least, not any of the ones we’re talking about now. But maybe at some point you’ll hear about it, and show up and lurk around the edges, and watch something new being made.
Jacob Kramer-Duffield thinks 