The case against Threads

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." - Maya Angelou

It's the same case made against Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and every other profit-focused social media silo. And every time, the case is right.

I'm going to call it Facebook, not Meta, because they're likely to change the name again once Zuckerberg finally accepts the VR play is a failure.

Facebook showed us who it is with the lie of video's supremacy.

Facebook showed us who it is when you had to pay to reach people who followed your Facebook page.

Facebook showed us who it is when it forced a pivot to video again with Reels on Instagram, forcing photographers to become videographers or suffer obscurity.

There will come a time when you can no longer reach people on Threads without buying ads. This is the way of capital-driven social media. It happened on Facebook. It happened on Instagram. It happened on Twitter.

And it will happen on Threads.

I don't have a good answer to "then what should I use?" other than the same answer I've given since the age of blogs: don't depend on it. Have a blog so there's a canonical place for people to find your words. Have a newsletter so there's a canonical place to follow you. I used ConvertKit's free 10,000 subscriber Newsletter plan before moving it in-house to my blog's own newsletter system. ConvertKit even lets you use their PO box so you don't have to pay for one. You don't even have to understand why you might need one, though you should.

Substack is already moving toward taking power from users with the way the follow button works, so even if the rampant and eager support of transphobia isn't a problem for you, the obvious moves to cut its users off from direct contact with subscribers should be. So don't depend on Substack. You will regret it.

Make your newsletter and blog first in line, with social media getting tidbits to draw people to your home base. Promote RSS; steal my pitch. Use Bluesky as your first or only social media platform. They're a "corporation" but not the same kind as Meta or Twitter, and the folks behind it seem to have an alignment with the posters, not the money people. You get the positives of algorithms from other platforms through Feeds, but you get to pick which one you like. The Discover feed is run by Bluesky itself and consistently delivers interesting stuff. They call this algorithmic choice.

If you ignore my advice, I won't say I told you so when the inevitable happens. I know it's hard to resist the allure of easy audience building they all promise. I'll just still be here with my little blog and probably a guide to help you unravel the mess you got yourself in to.

Good luck.