Threads is the gas-leak social network

This was published in Mar 29, 2024, I think the online ecosystem and the vibe of each platform has changed a bit since then.

It’s very hard to evaluate the experience on a personalized platform since everybody gets a different feed. I’m on Threads mostly because what I post to Instagram goes to Threads automatically and if you’re a non-traditional instagram poster (no selfies, take flower photos with an interesting background and the flower isn’t always inscribed in the frame, …) you might find Twitter clones have people who appreciate you more.

I got the feeling Threads was feeling me out at the beginning to see if I was interested in breathless panicked posts about the Trump regime and I didn’t take the bait and it shows me other stuff now. If I had taken the bait it might be different.

I think Meta in general has the problem that oldsters like it’s new platforms better than anyone else, once I started using the voice chat features in my Meta Quest 3 I found more than one retired woman who liked to share panoramas and other 3-d content. I think Meta really wishes it could get teenagers to think social VR is cool or think Thread is cool but they don’t —- and this impacts the scene there.

Note also in Summer 2025 the kind of center-leftist who writes for the NY Times editorial page is likely to be particularly annoyed by the "cultural left" that used to hold court on Twitter and has to some extent dispersed to Bluesky -- this kind of carping can be found here:

https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-is-blueskyism

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-bluesky-ization-of-the-ame...