Whats threads??
Meta/Facebook made a Twitter/X clone called Threads. They enabled activity pub, so that Fediverse users can be followed from Threads and vice versa.
BlueSky is next
BlueSky has some novel monetization concepts but yes, I think they will eventually find that those are not sustainable and will introduce ads eventually.
How hard is it to run a platform charging a couple dollars a month so that you don’t need to turn into a ghoulish capitalist nightmare? Like, really. If even one of them went the “no ads, ever, just a tiny monthly fee” wouldn’t that be better? Wouldn’t everyone flock there? Is everyone so dumb that they think these huge sites will run for free?? No… wait I think I’ve answered my own question…
Sounds good to me but the ideal of social media is to network with as many people as possible. There are billions of people globally who would never want to pay or couldn’t even afford a few dollars. Which would leave it as some kind of niche premium service that can’t connect to a lot of people.
That’s also besides the fact that the purpose of social media now is to connect brands and political groups to you over any actual connection with other people.
A social app? Impossible. Everyone will just say “But I get Facebook for free!”
It’s not about being dumb and expecting stuff for free but a general anger towards subscription based models. Fair models exist and are possible, but are a collateral of the general hate.
Then, free alternatives exist, and believe it or not, some people do not have a tiny monthly fee they could spare or do not want to pay for something that a free alternative exists.
Threema tried exactly that, and failed comically.
Have you met people?
Introducing even a 0.49 charge per month would flood the front page of reddit and lemmy with “enshittification” rants for days. And 9 in 10 people would leave the platform, if not more.
I donate to the fediverse. My new server does a monthly state of the server thing and I use that as a reminder to donate. Considering server costs, I believe I cover more than my share, but most people probably don’t donate at all, and frankly the people running the server deserve compensation for their efforts and that is never included in costs.
I might feel differently if it was a sub, though. It’s a world of difference between me choosing to donate and someone reaching into my wallet on a monthly basis. Idk. But I’m definitely not having ads.
social media depends on having a critical mass of users, and that’s only going to happen with a free model.
It would be better, yes, but you’d be sacrificing 90% of your userbase going that route. The vast majority aren’t going to pay a monthly fee for a social media account. One or the other is inevitable, though. Server infra ain’t free, after all.
Isn’t the bluesky client open source? That would make it harder to force ads on everyone.
Sure, but ultimately the ads would be fed by the service, not the client. And they can always do like Twitter and Reddit did and kill the API so no third-party clients are functional.
How long before they introduce some sweet new fascism features?
To serve you relevant ads, Meta will use your activity on Threads and Instagram, the posts you interact with, your email address, and “your activity from off Meta technologies,” according to a support page.
Do I read it right in that they’ll try to follow you around Fediverse, aside from monitoring you on every site they already have a nose on?
De-fe-de-rate.
You not only misinterpreted the description, but then you proposed a measure completely useless to either the real situation or your imagined one.
You did lemmy proud.
Eh, my only complaint is that they lumped the “r” in with the “ate.” The “r” is part of the previous syllable.
That said, I highly doubt defederating would actually solve anything. If they want to scrape, they’ll scrape.
Probably more about their general user tracking than that tbh. Meta has always had profiles for everyone because of Facebook/meta integrations on every website
Threads is still around?
Yes this is so confusing to me. There was a blast of attention about it when it was launched that lasted like a week max and then everyone completely forgot about it. I thought it was a short-run experiment that got shut down. What reason is there to use threads? Are there any actual humans who still use it? I’ve never visited it but something tells me that it’s just like reddit with at most 100 real users and the rest is just bots replying to bots.
and then everyone completely forgot about
You need to expand your sources of information. Threads is shit, I agree, but it is actually getting solid usage. You’re going off vibes on places like Lemmy.
Yup. If you only follow Lemmy, you’ll be completely confused at:
- why Tesla/X/other Musk stuff still exists
- how Trump won if nobody supported him
- how Meta is still in business if the only thing people use is their cheap VR headsets
There’s a lot of stuff we don’t see here.
