Hanging by a Thread

Meta’s launch yesterday of its new social platform Threads represents a major step change in the evolution of social media. It might not seem like it at first; after all, this is a model that Twitter pioneered (a fact which Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, acknowledged), later repackaged by Meta, which already has platforms of its own. It also shares all the presumably key features of a “public town square” — posts, replies, likes, and reposts which do not imply endorsements

But there are already some important distinctions. You can only access Threads with an existing Instagram account, which means bots will not proliferate easily. In many respects, Twitter today can feel more code-like than human, mostly because a not-insignificant number of profiles are either controlled by bots, impersonating someone (fake), or spam accounts mass-producing unsolicited promotional material.

Importing culture

Pre-Threads, the two social media giants offered deeply different business and engagement models; from Ben Thompson at Stratechery:

Think about the contrast between Twitter and Instagram; both are unique amongst social networks in that they follow a broadcast model: tweets on Twitter and photos on Instagram are public by default, and anyone can follow anyone. The default medium, though, is fundamentally different: Twitter has photos and videos, but the heart of the service is text (and links). Instagram, on the other hand, is nothing but photos and video (and link in bio).

The implications of this are vast. Sure, you may follow your friends on both, but on Twitter you will also follow news breakers, analysts, insightful anons, joke tellers, and shit posters. The goal is to mainline information, and Twitter’s speed and information density are unparalleled by anything in the world. On Instagram, though, you might follow brands and influencers, and your chief interaction with your friends is stories about their Turkey Day exploits. It’s about aspiration, not information, and the former makes a lot more sense for effective advertising.

It’s more than just the medium though; it’s about the user’s mental state as well. Instagram is leisurely and an escape, something you do when you’re procrastinating; Twitter is intense and combative, and far more likely to be tied to something happening in the physical world, whether that be watching sports or politics or doing work:

This contrast informs how Meta has approached Threads at launch. Merging a platform for photos and videos with a text-based, link-laden service broadens the target audience to more personas: not just news outlets, analysts, and joke tellers, but also friends and influencers.

Drawing on Instagram’s massive install base, Threads has already built the foundation of the culture it wants to promote. This explains why, in their announcement post, Meta described Threads as “[taking] what Instagram does best and [expanding] that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.”

With Threads, tuning out the noise is a feature, not a bug. Any action taken to that aim (whether it is to block, report, or restrict profiles) helps further the aim of enabling productive and leisurely conversations on the platform.

The medium is the message

Threads, in its infancy, has yet to distinguish between the features on the roadmap and those it intentionally left out at launch. The app has a ways to go. Marques Brownlee, a YouTuber best known for his technology-focused videos, posted about the need for a home feed that consists only of the people one follows. Threads will also eventually launch in the EU and adopt desktop functionality, both of which are critical to drive engagement across users and businesses on the platform.

Many features that didn’t make the cut for launch, and some omissions are conscious decisions:

• Direct messaging: In an interview with The Verge, Adam Mosseri claimed that Threads isn’t interested in launching an encrypted direct messages (DM) feature, at least to start. This may still be on the roadmap, but Mosseri claims many users have “inbox fatigue,” and this feature would be antithetical to openness — ideally, users would simply share threads as a DM on other networks.
• A section for liked posts: There is no category for liked Threads on user accounts, only direct reply engagement. Whether or not this was intentional, sentiment is positive across some users who claim it removes the cost of likes by association (it should be noted that users can still see who has liked a specific Thread or reply).
• Following count: In a thread from Jackie Berardo, a researcher at Meta, it was important to hide the following-to-follower ratio that Instagram and Twitter both have, which “will do wonders for our mental health and incentivize social connection.”

These are all cherry-picked examples, of course, but the common thread is culture. The value prop of Threads is that of a casual, text-based Instagram, which Meta hopes will carry through to its new platform in the form of an escapist, convivial, and positive culture. News, politics, and shitposting will still be around on Threads, but real-time information is no longer the center of gravity. Interactions are more personal, and therefore less combative.

Monetizing value

The paradox of Twitter’s cultural impact is that it outweighed the company’s financial results. Although it no longer publicly reports earnings since the Musk buyout, Twitter reported revenue estimates of $1.34 billion in Q2 of last year, compared to a range of $26-28.5 billion for Meta that same quarter. According to Ben Thompson, this reflects the reality of information on the Internet, which is “massively impactful and economically worthless, particularly when ads — which themselves are digital information — can easily be bought elsewhere.”

As of Thursday morning, 30 million people have signed up for Threads. It might seem like ads are right around the corner, but this could take a few months:

As I see it, Threads has three potential paths to monetization:

1. Advertisements: There are no ads today, nor will there be until Threads achieves enough scale. At that point, adding them will be a “champagne problem,” per Mosseri. This model is not only the most sensible, but Meta could easily adopt it without needing to out-innovate their most prominent competitor on pricing. Twitter underwent a major advertising exodus over the past year, and many that have returned don’t seem to be spending anywhere near the levels they were before.
2. Verification: Instagram’s blue checks port over to Threads account upon creation, but Meta could still introduce a tiered verification scheme to unlock additional functionality (ex: government-affiliated accounts that pay for compliance features, or creators looking to establish a presence). The company already positions Meta Verified as a subscription bundle with “access to impersonation protections and access to increased visibility and support.” This wouldn’t be far off.
3. Charging for access: The least intuitive approach. Despite building one of the most powerful moats on the Internet, Meta would not benefit from restricting access from all but the most active power users, even if it multiplies average revenue per monetizable daily active user per year. It also runs counter to openness, the main idea on which the platform is founded.

These are not mutually exclusive approaches, either. Zuckerberg could opt for a hybrid model, or bring in advertisers while also piloting an equivalent version of Meta Verified on Threads, a likely outcome. But with a differentiated value prop, it has room to maneuver and try things out that might not have worked at Twitter.

I don’t think Twitter will die. As Threads comes into its own over the next couple of years, Twitter will fall back on its core strength of mainlining information in a time where that particular flavor of broadcasting is in high demand. But for those who have bemoaned the confrontational nature of Twitter, toxic discussions with anonymous profiles, or increasing barriers to entry for a degraded overall service, Threads represents an accessible cultural and monetary alternative.