Meta readies new Twitter challenger
The latest challenger to Twitter arrives Thursday. Threads is a platform from Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook. It is one of many attempts to dislodge an ailing Twitter, whose users are becoming increasingly frustrated. What’s Threads up against, and what’s it got that other upstarts don’t?
Isaac Lee, a 28-year-old New Yorker, used to be super into Twitter. Ever since Elon Musk took over, he’s been more and more … done with it.
“I would say it was used originally for, like, connecting with people and random thoughts or even learning about quick headlines, but none of those three things seem functional or, like, as useful as it used to be,” Lee said.
His feed doesn’t show him what he wants to see anymore, and he said he will absolutely not pay for Twitter Blue, the subscription service with extra features like the ability to edit tweets.
“I think it’s stupid,” Lee said.
Over the weekend, Twitter imposed limits on how many tweets a user can view. That did not do the company any favors.
“Twitter is severely wounded,” said Jasmine Enberg, a principal analyst with Insider Intelligence. “Meta’s Threads could deliver another major blow.”
Out of all the challengers looking to push Twitter off its perch — Mastodon, Bluesky, Truth Social, Discord, Tumblr, Nostr — Threads has the most going for it, Enberg said. One of those things is Instagram, with an estimated 2.5 billion monthly active users.
“Meta only needs roughly 1 in 4 Instagram users to use Threads monthly to make it as big as Twitter,” Enberg said.
Threads is going to be connected to Instagram. And Meta doesn’t need to convert Twitter’s most die-hard users. Just some famous ones.
“If a Kardashian — any one of them — or one of the top soccer players in the world, or Beyoncé start regularly using it starting tomorrow, I think it’s inevitable that it will take off. But it’s not given that happens,” said Brian Wieser, principal of Madison and Wall strategic consultancy.
Some users have trust issues when it comes to privacy and the data Meta collects from its users. And people accustomed to Twitter’s almost-anything-goes culture may not find that in the more family friendly, community standards realm of Instagram.
But if there is a moment where a newcomer could break through, Wieser said it’s now.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
