The Twitter vs. Threads fight is a fascinating one
The Twitter vs. Threads fight is a fascinating one, and it must have taken Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, by surprise. If not, he certainly didn't think it would be a threat so quickly. Threads, officially released on 6 July, recorded 100 million downloads in the first five days. This is massive by any stretch of the imagination.
On the one hand, the reason for this rapid adoption is likely due to Meta's product integration. For one thing, to have a Threads account, you must have Instagram. This is a genius move by Zuckerberg. It seems simple and obvious, but it's not an obvious or simple call to make. He is clearly creating a closed social networking system, much like Apple. Once you're in the pond, getting out is tricky and cumbersome.
Unlike Musk, who specializes in making rockets, hyperloops, electric vehicles, and batteries, Zuckerberg's bread and butter is social networking. To him, it is not a hobby. That's how he made his billions. He bludgeoned Snapchat with a blunt object into submission with Instagram Stories and filters.
Musk had been treating his users with an increased sense of arrogance and ignoring the concerns of his platform, Twitter. Now Zuckerberg is squaring off against Musk. I'd put my money on Zuckerberg here. Advertisers have fled the platform due to its toxicity amongst many other problems.
The challenge Threads faces is deciding what it will be in the face of Twitter. Is it going to be another Twitter, or will it create a different text-based platform? Is Twitter going to be the forage of the right-wing conspiracy theorist that Musk seems to be lately? It's going to be a fascinating fight to watch.
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