this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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[–] MontyVirus@sh.itjust.works 55 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Isn’t this to be expected of any brand new platform though? Everybody floods in the first few days to check it out, and then it kind of tapers back to more realistic numbers as the novelty wears off. Not that I want to see it succeed, I’m just not sure these numbers are a good barometer for how successful the platform will be.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Yes. This is a very normal engagement pattern. It feels like the author did no real research at all, and is spinning a narrative.

[–] moon_matter@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

I get the feeling that nobody wants to deal with new platforms anymore. They are actively hostile to the idea and come in with unrealistic expectations. They want all the staple features and stability of a decade old major platform from day 1.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I don't even think their early growth numbers were real. Threads is an offshoot of Instagram, and there have been reports of accounts appearing spontaneously. It's entirely possible that they simply populated the service using existing Instagram accounts.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Maybe, but that's a HUGE decrease. These aren't flight-of-fancy numbers, these are exodus numbers.

Social networks really rely on a critical mass of users for viability. A lot of the draw for many twitter users is the engagement from celebrities and influcers.

I think a lot of people wanted to leave twitter, but just didn't really have a viable alternative with the critical mass of users and the celebrity engagement. If they already were uneasy about twitter as a platform and have something else to scratch that itch... I think the better question would be "What does Twitter offer that could draw them back?"

[–] Wooly@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yup, we just won't really know for a month or two, consecutive months of dropoff is something to celebrate.

This could literally just be attributed to it being weekdays.

[–] ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Sort of, yeah, but it's worth recognizing that this is a little different insofar as this isn't an independent new platform, this is directly linked to and leveraging the existing audience of Instagram into the platform.

This isn't the case of an independent new platform like, say, Kick trying to draw in an audience away from existing platforms to theirs. There's a distinct advantage here that they've clearly benefited from in terms of lowering the barrier to entry by not requiring a new account to be made. It may not sound like much, but every point of friction counts for anything new.