Being on Threads made me use Twitter / X more

Original thread on Threads.

Here's an interesting observation:

Being on Threads made me use Twitter / X more.

I was never really a Twitter user. It wasn't really popular in HK and it kinda felt like a "chore" to get used to another social media other than IG.

Then Threads launched. Of course it was advertised all around IG. Seeing that Threads plans to be part of the Fediverse in the future, I was all in.

For the first few days, It was a great experience. Oddly, it was very complimentary to IG. I enjoyed scrolling on IG but I very rarely post anything becayse an irrational part of me wanted to maintain a so-called perfect and consistent profile.

On Threads, it seemed like everyone was very willing to just speak their mind. No filters, no hesitation, just pure and raw text. It was nice reading other people's Threads as well as posting my own Threads.

I thought to myself, "This must be how people felt like on Twitter, man I was missing out."

The "lack" of features on Threads was in a way one of the things I actually love about Threads. We could frame it as "minimalistic", but at least it wasn't as cluttered and "noisy" as Twitter.

But the one thing I really didn't like about Threads, was that the main feed was just full of random celebrities and not much of the people that I actually follow.

At first I was very sympathetic. Obviously the launch was rushed in order to compete with Twitter / X. Having a few "inconveniences" was expected. It's like an MVP. It's ok that it's not perfect, yet.

A few weeks passed. My sympathy was getting lower and lower. Active users started dropping. Even more random content started popping up on my feed.

Threads gave me a taste of what text-based social media could be. I was hooked. Yet Threads wasn't enough.

Slowly, I found myself using Twitter more and more. The community and amount of content on Twitter was HUGE. It satisfied something within me that I just couldn't find with Threads.

In the foreseeable future, I would probably be using Twitter more than Threads.

If the main feed on Threads actually shows more relevant content than random celebrities, if the community in Threads finally starts to grow larger, if Threads finally joins the Fediverse, then I may come back and use Threads more.

But as of now... It isn't ready yet.

Congratulations Threads. You launched early, hoping to beat Twitter. But turns out, you became the best marketing strategy that Twitter ever has.