Meta’s new text-based social app Threads has quickly gained 100 million users since launching last week, which appears to be negatively impacting traffic on Twitter. According to web analytics, Twitter traffic declined 5-11% over the first two days Threads was available compared to the previous week. Threads was able to grow rapidly by allowing users to sign up with their existing Instagram accounts and bring over some of their followers. However, Threads has not yet launched in Europe due to regulatory issues. The fast growth of Threads may solidify its position as a real competitor to Twitter, which has over 238 million daily active users.
I think initially there will be some limitations. And there are definitely flaws and limitations with activitypub. Maybe this will push the protocol forward to be better.
But if they really break it, why not fork it and not worry about Threads?
I think it’s funny that people think that Meta will kill the Fediverse. Just like Google “killed” xmpp. I think neither is true.
Sure, if Meta isn’t going to act actively malicious, and they will. That is their standard operating procedure. How anyone can look at how Facebook has operated and say, “Ah yes, they’ll be a good neighbor,” is beyond me. We should be walling them off and let them be a cancer onto themselves, rather than let them in the ecosystem and then turn malignant.
Threads != Facebook
If you don’t want to follow people that are on threads more power to you. That’s the beauty of activitypub.