I’m more surprised to discover now that it launched without ads
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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The goal was to attract Twitter refugees. No ads helps sell the "greener pastures" the users were looking for.
Once those users are comfortable, Threads can do whatever it wants. They know how much it took to get Twitter users to leave Twitter.
People acting like Meta launched Threads out of the kindness of Zuck's heart are dumb as fuck. Threads has the same goal as Facebook: to make money selling your eyeballs to advertisers and your metadata to data brokers.
Yet, some people seem to be harsher towards BlueSky than Threads. It's just pure hate being focused for so many migrating there instead of Fediverse (which I agree would be better, but these people are not joining a social media to have to learn new tech terms so they can create an account and having to decide which instance after understanding federalization if they even do).
These people are happy when people migrate to Threads though, because better Zuckerberg than Musk, right? For some people it is always about hate and they avoid/are unable to make constructive criticism.
So did Facebook. It's the old drug dealer gambit: first hit is on the house, after that, you gotta pay.
I'm just waiting for Bluesky to introduce ads.
Maybe in the future, but for now it looks like they already amnounced their next step to how they'll monetize their platform.
Bluesky has revealed how it plans to start making money without necessarily having to rely on ads. The platform will remain free to use for everyone, though it’s working on a premium subscription that will provide access to profile customization tools (remember when Myspace offered that for free?) and higher quality video uploads.
remember when Myspace offered that for free?
This seems like a strange gripe. If their business model was sustainable, more of us would be reading this on myspace right now.
May all of the for-profit websites chip and shatter.
We don’t need them. We have never needed them.
Let’s take the internet back to when it was a place where people ran websites for things they cared about.
Fuck profits, fuck corporations, fuck capitalism. Solidarity across the working class.
Like basically everything, there's balance to be struck. If sites operate purely off of donations and enthusiasm, it's easy to turn out like kbin.social instead of myspace.
Nothing's stopping people from running websites for things they care about right now, but you have to care an awful lot to host/support something for other people without the potential for it to at least pay for itself.
A subscription for a social media site. The 21th century is ridiculous. And the fact that Twitter (under Elon the scumbag Musk) introduced it first, and they're presenting themselves as a Twitter alternative, makes it much worse. No thanks, I'm definitely staying on the fediverse.
Site selling your data? Riot!
Site having ads? Riot!
Site offering subscription? Riot!
...why no site?
I don't think its the best alternative either but definitely better than ads, why should you be mad some people can customize little things in their profile? Discord does this and you don't see many complaining about it, they usually criticize other aspects of Discord. Also, you can't even currently do that on Mastodon I think (correct me if I'm wrong, I could be), you could easily do that on Misskeys which most instances are japanese and the biggest instances don't accept non-Japanese residents because of past history of people forcing english when they clearly state to be Japanese-only. Also, it's closer to Mastodon in terms of usage and looks than Twitter, and Mastodon isn't so similar to Twitter. Easier for this guy to criticize when not suggesting what should be done instead, people obsessively hating on BlueSky doesn't look so upset some of them are going to Threads instead which is a lot worse for the Fediverse to reach to and from, compared to BlueSky. Maybe give ideas on how to make it easier for non-tech people to be more appealed to use something they've never heard of (federalization), have to choose an instance (at this point most already give up) and learn how to communicate with people from other instances. So hard to make constructive criticism, right?
This comment looks like the sort of bot comments you usually would see on Reddit, unable of constructive criticism, just plainly hate on things and don't make your case.
It's not constructive criticism, I never claimed that it was. It's just my personal opinion. I find paying for a social media site ridiculous. Donating to a Lemmy/Mastodon/(insert any Fediverse service) instance is absolutely fine, donating to FLOSS software projects or open data projects is totally fine, but paying a monthly fee for some random feature just feels weird to me. And the fact that Elon Musk popularized it, makes it even more ridiculous for me.
Fuck Mark Zuckerberg. Fuck Jack Dorsey. Fuck Daniel Ek. Fuck Elon Musk. Fuck Peter Thiel. Fuck Jeff Bezos. Fuck Steven Huffman.
& all the rest.
"Since our priority is to build consumer value first and foremost, there are no ads or monetization features currently on Threads," a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed response.
The spokesperson then continued, "But only until early 2025. Then we'll be throwing consumer value in the trash and lighting it on fire. It will be very exciting."
They’re not even hiding the enshittification strategy. They’re practically teaching you the principles up front.
“First we trap you, then we exploit you. Duh.”
Is it enshittification if it's shit from the start?
I guess you can always make it shittier?
I never understood the appeal of Threads anyway. Like, who leaves Xitter because it’s toxic garbage and goes to something owned by Meta, who practically invented this particular flavor of toxic garbage?
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Dear Pikachu, of course you are surprised. Learn how to expect and evade Team Rocket first.
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TIL Threads didn't have ads
Still no reason to defederate, huh?
Still no reason to defederate, huh?
No, it's not. Ads can't federate. Threads has no control over my Mastodon feed and Lemmy can't interact with Threads at all. Following Threads accounts from Mastodon is effectively an ad blocker.
Might be a stupid question, but can't threads just post ads as "posts" via activityPub? On mastodon they would appear as toots?
Was just remembering how reddit introduced ads as basically promoted posts and recall facebook doing the same.
I sure fucking hope not.
Might be a stupid question, but can’t threads just post ads as “posts” via activityPub? On mastodon they would appear as toots?
Ads in Instagram are posts in the timeline from accounts you haven't followed. Ads don't show when you visit a profile and browse its images. So for example a post by Coca-Cola might appear in the main feed even though I never followed it but it has a little "sponsored" marker in a corner to indicate that it's there because Coke paid for it and the ad placement algorithm thinks that I might be interested in that product. As Threads is a spin-off from Instagram, ads there will surely follow the very same model. Sure, you might be able to follow Coca-Cola's Threads account from Mastodon and see the post promoting their drink that way but Threads just cannot place targeted ads on Mastodon because they don't control that feed.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense for targeted ads for sure. Still a bit worried about hashtags being used for ads since I follow a lot of hashtags on mastodon and usually have a quite a nice "organic" feed compared to other social media.
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Ads can't federate
Never underestimate facebooks capacity to enshittify. If they want to send ads as posts they will make a way. In principle the fediverse should oppose for-profit-line-go-up fuckheads, it's always the same bullshit.
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I'm changing my vote in the Agora from "yes defederate" to "Hell fucking yes defederate.'
There aren't any ads on Mastodon. :)
Did threads take off recently or what's the story? I thought it was unsuccessful as xitter was already the preferred platform
I thought it was unsuccessful as xitter was already the preferred platform
It isn't anymore, ad I expect that to accelerate. The Guardian just announced today that they will no longer use it, for example (although individual journalists may still choose to do so)
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More short sighted corporate greed. It's a great period to try and pull in Twitter users but instead let's add ads for a short term bump in profits.
Why is it shortsighted? A service like this costs money to run, and if you won't pay for it, someone else has to.
Maybe lets not try to pretend that it is just about the costs shall we? I bet MBAs will cower at the suggestion to put up a paywall from the beginning. Afterall, bait-and-switch is their bread-and-butter.
Subscriptions weren't the norm when we actually paid for something and got the full product. The cost to run things didn't suddenly become a factor just now.
Only thing that changed: greed of businesses, execs, shareholders.
we actually paid for something and got the full product
That's generally not online platforms, though. For obvious reasons, those have ongoing operating costs
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I wish more federated services had built in (optional) support for enabling ads so I didn't have to constantly worry about them shutting down. Especially peer tube.
I kinda wish more federated services also had built in, optional support for directly paying the people hosting the service and infrastructure.
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