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The writer’s latest book is ‘How to Disagree’

Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, launched the social media app Threads in an attempt to dethrone Twitter and capture the attention of disgruntled users. Initially, Threads enjoyed significant success, attracting millions of daily active users and positioning itself as a kinder alternative to the toxic environment of Twitter. However, the tides quickly turned, and Threads began to lose momentum, shedding a significant portion of its user base.

Twitter, despite facing criticisms and dissatisfaction from its users, has managed to withstand competition and maintain its dominance in the social media landscape. The allure of Twitter lies in its capacity to provide a platform for low-stakes drama, conflict, and public conversations. Users are drawn to the toxicity, knowing that it adds a certain appeal and excitement to their online experience. Additionally, user inertia plays a vital role in keeping users engaged with a platform, even when dissatisfaction grows.

Threads, however, has the potential to disrupt the social media landscape further. With ongoing improvements and its association with Meta and Instagram, Threads may yet emerge as a strong contender for information-heavy users. Alternatively, a more diversified ecosystem of social media services may arise, catering to different user segments and preferences. Only time will tell if Threads can overcome the challenges posed by Twitter’s dominance and lead the way towards a new era of social media.

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we will send you a myFT Daily Recap email rounding up the latest social media news every morning.

The writer’s latest book is ‘How to Disagree’

When Mark Zuckerberg first entered the ring against Elon Musk, it looked like he had landed a first-round knockout.

Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, conceived Threads as a direct attack on Twitter (now X). Threads launched on July 5, after a breakneck run in the market, and it did remarkably well, acquiring more than 44 million daily active users at its peak. But now we are in the second round and the narrative has changed again. Threads has lost 80 percent of those active users; He has about 8mn left.

Meta’s timing could hardly have been better. It came just after Musk’s team angered Twitter’s 400 million or so users by drastically, and possibly accidentally, limiting the number of posts they could see per day. Threads was hailed as the savior of disgruntled tweeters.

There are many of them. Ever since Musk bought Twitter, now X, my timeline has been full of people complaining about how bad it is. Much of this is because he dislikes Musk, who glories in pantomime villain role of him. But it’s also because of how he and his team have set out to disrupt the delicate ecosystem of the service, like ignorant colonial administrators tearing down houses and clearing roads through neighborhoods.

The new administration made it more difficult for users to see the tweets of those they chose to follow and more difficult to share links to other websites. They introduced more intrusive ads and allowed bots to flourish. They made random changes to the service seemingly on a whim and executed a clumsy rebrand. The user experience, always a mixture of delight and irritation, became more irritating and less pleasant.

Most brands, mismanaged like this one, would be quickly destroyed by their rivals. But X is a service with no viable competitors. Where else can you go to feel like you’re part of a live cacophonous public conversation about whatever’s in the news? Possible alternatives, like Mastodon and Bluesky, seem to require a computer science degree to use. Clubhouse: Well, this is probably the first time you’ve seen it mentioned, since everyone said it would replace Twitter.

However, the threads seemed different. It’s easy to set up and start using. Backed by Meta and linked to Instagram, it scaled almost immediately. It billed itself as a kinder, calmer place, free of toxic rants and playground fights. Millions of Twitter users claimed a square of land there before returning to Twitter to tell everyone they had. But most of them never fully migrated.

The threads moved fast. Why didn’t Twitter break? I think there are two main reasons. First, like Clubhouse and Substack before it, Threads didn’t understand what makes Twitter so appealing. People don’t visit Twitter despite the toxicity, but because of it. Most of us get bored during the day and crave some low-stakes drama, and the essence of drama is conflict. As with smoking, knowing you’re inhaling something harmful is, perversely, part of the appeal. Threads keeps its promise, and that’s your problem.

The second, more fundamental reason is user inertia. Once a social networking service has built a large user base, the user base itself becomes a reason for each user to stick around. This is even more true in the case of a social medium similar to Twitter, which is driven by reactions to public events, than in more personal services like Facebook or Instagram. You go there not just because your friends or acquaintances are there, but because all it’s there (or rather, everyone’s illusion; actually only a minority of people use this type of service) and they’re all talking at the same time.

Crucially, this remains a powerful reason to visit even as service deteriorates. Economists would call it a collective action problem: many or most X users may be dissatisfied, but until they all decide to leave at once, they will keep coming back. X is almost like an experiment to test the limits of this theory. Musk seems determined to prove that he doesn’t need a competitor to put him out of business, because he can do it himself. How bad can X do before dissatisfaction overcomes inertia and enough users leave to make it idle?

Threads, which is still refining its service, could still become attractive enough to replace X as the dominant social app for information-heavy users. Alternatively, neither Threads nor Bluesky nor any other service will displace X, but a more mixed ecology of similar services will emerge, appealing to different segments: liberal or conservative, high or low drama. For now, though, X is still reeling, bruised and dazed, but he’s still the champion.