This is a pretty moronic take. “All of these other companies have already stolen my privacy, so what’s one more? It’s not like this specific company has helped undermine democracy in a world superpower the last two elections!”
Not until they add some basic features and we get some answers on the data collection.
It doesn’t even offer a reverse chronological list of posts with only people you follow. That is basic, day 1 level functionality for me.
I don’t think I’ll use it in any serious way. I left Facebook years ago now. I have an Instagram but never use it. I’m just not a user of Meta’s products. But I’ll reserve my handle and if Twitter itself finally craps the bed at least I’ll have one more off ramp.
What does it mean for it to be like Instagram but for text? Instagram I thought would be inseparable from photos. It’s akin to saying “like YouTube but for text.” What does that mean?
It’s clean, intuitive UI is almost a clone of IG. They’ve then just reversed the primary content from photos to text, & strapped it with Twitter-like features (reposts, quote reposts etc.)
Ah that’s interesting. Amazing to see them actually respecting a copyright. They could still have gone with Facebook, though. I think the Instagram halo is real.
Not really “respecting” but more like avoiding to engage what seems to be an actual patent/trademark troll. Because I checked the brand’s site and it doesn’t seem to be working, but the patent is still held
I think I’m a bit of an outlier here, because I tried it (I already had an IG account) - but the bombardment of influencer-types, big-name brands, and having zero-control over my feed gave me more than enough reasons to leave for good.
I said I would never join facebook. Or msn messenger. Or Discord. Or Twitch. Or Twitter. But then everyone and their grandmas started using them. And despite knowing already back then they would use me as the product, I hesitantly joined.
So if they manage to release an EU-legal version, and everyone-ish joins, and mastodon becomes barren, I might join. Again. Its not like they dont know everything about me already.
The cynic in me have realized most people jumps on whatever is advertised to them and is cheap, and call anything that isnt advertised enough or too expensive for “difficult” or “looks stupid”. Those who claims ads doesn’t work on them are extra prone to jump on anything commercial while downtalking better and free’er options. So we can’t win this way.
I have said this in a different thread but Mastodon will always have an adoption issue because the use for twitter is the ability to follow marginally known to famous people that you want to hear for whatever reason (for me sports, finance, tech stuff etc) and occasionally interact with them or even become a followed twitter person yourself. Mastodon may not reach critical mass on its own but being federated and connected with people that use a twitter like service from Meta will greatly open up the opportunity to use Mastodon like many would want to use Twitter.
The bigger issue will be how well the connection works and there is always going to be concern with how meta uses the data, but for me it does make mastodon more appealing…
Maybe what we need is mirroring instances, which simply duplicate other instances, so users can read the content without having their devices talk to the original servers directly and give away information about your reading habits.
Say you want to see what’s up in Meta, but don’t want to get tracked. Federate with a mirroring instance - all it does is relay posts from Meta-land to Fediverse-land, and all Meta gets in terms of info is a zillion queries from the mirror instance, with zero info about end-users.
Another brainfart: It would be good practice for every celebrity and influencer using Threads to have their own instance, and same thing for every business that wants a presence on Threads - they should be operating their own instance, on a system they own, instead of running an account on Threads. That way, they can control their server, have discussions or groups structured the way they want, have their own TOS instead of having to deal with Meta’s attempts to censor them or splatter them with enshittification…
…AND if we can get enough businesses, celebrities & in-demand personalities to do this when Threads opens up to the Fediverse, that will take power away from Meta. If every celebrity & influencer is on their own instance, Meta can’t just wall up the garden without creating a huge shitstorm…
Once hashtags (& maybe trends) get added, we will get a honeymoon phase, before it all gets bloated TF. Give it a few months and we will have Threads Stories, THCAST for long-form audio/podcasts (with AI transcription), e-commerce Thread Shops…
Yep. Looks like they made it to minimal-viable-product.
Now they’re going to be in enticement mode, so everyone there’s going to be nice, moderation’s going to be better (not great, but less sucky), and they’ll work to keep the riff-raff out.
Later comes the Extend-Extinguish part of the Three E’s, the festooning with ads, the constant exhortations to upgrade to Premium™, the sudden incompatibility with anything not Meta, and enough tracking to make Big Brother envious.
Agree with everything except the tracking; that’s got to be built into it since day one, unless they didn’t manage to hit their harvesting goals by the stated release date, which they want to hit in order to compete with twitter asap
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