Blaine Cook on Threads bootstrapping from Instagram. I’ve seen a couple variations of this from other folks too:

Threads is blowing up because Facebook is using their monopoly on the social graph. Legislation to guarantee easy, fast access to your own contact lists for use in non-billionaire-owned media would help level the playing field, because Zuck & co sure aren’t going to give the connections they stole back to us otherwise.

Ignoring fairness, it would’ve been more interesting if Threads had started from scratch, even just as a comparison with e.g. Mastodon stats.

myrmidon

@manton Let's judge them on facts: Adam Moserri says here that one will be able to take its followers elsewhere. This would be the biggest push for the Social Web anyone could dream of!

overcast.fm/+m_rpwbmMQ

Manton Reece

@myrmidon Yeah, I thought that was a great interview. After listening to it and other quotes, I’ll be surprised if they don’t do ActivityPub. But my expectations are low for other things, like I don’t expect an open posting API.

myrmidon

@manton If course they won’t (open API); these days are gone. That's why we need the Social Web to succeed. ActivityPub means they will try to do an incredible product to keep their users.

💬 John Philpin

@pratik and 60% bigger than WordPress — something is afoot

Manton Reece

@pratik @JohnPhilpin It’s accurate, not counting folks who have disabled ActivityPub. Many of those accounts are not being used anymore, though.

💬 John Philpin

…. and substantially higher than WordPress … go

https://john.philpin.com/uploads/2023/2d28d67afb.jpg

@manton I have trouble understanding what point this is supposed to be making, tbh. “Monopoly on the social graph”? It’s blowing up because people like Instagram and choose to use another product from it or their own free choice.

“Zuck and co” haven’t “stolen” anything, and the assertion about legislation is completely incomprehensible.

Manton Reece @manton
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