Threads is nearing X's daily app users, new data shows
It's wild to me how many people are still engaging with X.
There's a graph in the middle of this article which is fairly sobering for those of us who are really hoping for Bluesky and Mastodon to succeed. In it, we see a gentle decline in X usage, a healthy increase in Threads usage, and a straight, slightly-declining line representing Bluesky usage that seems to stubbornly cling to the X axis.
For me, this is in contrast to the experience of actually using each network. Every so often, I'll dip into X to see what the discourse is like, but it's universally the most toxic feed I've ever seen. (I reset my account some time ago and don't follow anyone or have any followers.) My Threads feed has become unreadable, with a few really bright spots who prefer to post there. On Bluesky, I interact with some very smart and insightful people I like very much, and get a bunch of interactions from political posters who, while potentially human, are indistinguishable from bots.
The growth of Threads is, of course, tethered to Instagram: there are calls to action to sign up and to look at your Threads feed all over that app. Which is why its app usage is flourishing but its web usage is not; Instagram doesn't have much of a life on the web.
It's worth saying that the raw numbers are not the important thing: instead, it's worth considering the difference in interactions across networks. Here, Bluesky and Mastodon absolutely outshine the competition. People are much more likely to reshare and engage in conversation - or donate to non-profits - on those networks, and that counts for a lot.
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