Threads is offically getting ads
Threads is offically getting ads
When threads first saw its posts on Lemmy[when Lemmy first started posting about threads], I was reading one and a coworker looked over my shoulder and gasped. I looked up at her, and she said, "what is that?? And why is the logo a pubic hair?!" Good times.Edit. Clarification.
Enshitification step 3
I remember the heady days when I thought this was the final step of enshittification. Such simple and innocent times.
Happened even faster than I thought lol.
The enshittification is carried over from other products. They're meta, so anything they launch is partly along the path already, because they can artificially boost the launch numbers with cross-platform promotion, and because everyone already knows what assholes they are, they're starting off with a lot of goodwill lost.
Basically, just slapping a new name and a new account creation process on some new features in their social network, is not enough to make it a new network.
They wouldn't need ads if they took a cut from all the porn and crypto ad bots littering the comment sections
As someone not using Threads this is a big surprise. I mean I'm surprised it didn't already have ads.
As another someone who doesn't use Threads, it is a big surprise to find out there's a website or something called Threads that looks like it's related to email and apparently is popular.
That was my first thought. I was surprised to find this out.
To serve you relevant ads, Meta will use your activity on Threads and Instagram, the posts you interact with, your email address, and “your activity from off Meta technologies,” according to a support page.
Do I read it right in that they'll try to follow you around Fediverse, aside from monitoring you on every site they already have a nose on?
De-fe-de-rate.
Probably more about their general user tracking than that tbh. Meta has always had profiles for everyone because of Facebook/meta integrations on every website
True
You not only misinterpreted the description, but then you proposed a measure completely useless to either the real situation or your imagined one.
You did lemmy proud.
Threads is still around?
Yes this is so confusing to me. There was a blast of attention about it when it was launched that lasted like a week max and then everyone completely forgot about it. I thought it was a short-run experiment that got shut down. What reason is there to use threads? Are there any actual humans who still use it? I've never visited it but something tells me that it's just like reddit with at most 100 real users and the rest is just bots replying to bots.
and then everyone completely forgot about
You need to expand your sources of information. Threads is shit, I agree, but it is actually getting solid usage. You’re going off vibes on places like Lemmy.
That was quick. They better not federate those ads
Federating ads sounds like a very quick way to get everyone else to defederate with you.
You’d think the trans hate and nazi love would be enough for everyone to defederate with them.
Jokes on them, I have always defederated them
Ads are targeted on the consumer, federating ads would be super bad PR, short lived and not at all effective.
"Super bad PR and not at all effective"
Yeah that sounds like a farcebook initiative
Ill federate this dick in their mouth
What do you mean, it's brand new??!
Is Threads even a good enough product for users to be willing to endure ads?
Remember to send financial support to your server
Wish I could, but I haven't found a way to do that. I guess the admin is working on it?
For yours, there is a heart outline up at the top of the page which leads to:
Check the About section for your server like this, not every server has donations set up tho https://thebrainbin.org/about
Is this some fancy way of saying "Please tip your waitress"
Please tip your federatress
Oh no. Anyway....
How long before they introduce some sweet new fascism features?
"Our new GestureSupport("Gestapo") means you can now upvote by striking your arm up and to the right..."
Maybe a slider so we can adjust how much "masculine energy" shows up in our feeds?
That is probably already implemented in the algorithm, currently disabled, but the control knob will start turning up as needed
I am jacks colon, I get cancer I kill jack!
Surprisedpikachu
Last time I checked Threads was 95% brand and influencer posts anyway.
Ha you are saying that there's nobody left? the remaining 5% must be robots lol
You know that you are saying this on a platform with an active user base in the low 6 figures, right?
You know the meme "there's dozens of us"?
When reading the title I accidentally placed an ‘i’ in ‘ads’…
There are no accidents
Tell that to my little brother.
AHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
BlueSky is next
BlueSky has some novel monetization concepts but yes, I think they will eventually find that those are not sustainable and will introduce ads eventually.
How hard is it to run a platform charging a couple dollars a month so that you don't need to turn into a ghoulish capitalist nightmare? Like, really. If even one of them went the "no ads, ever, just a tiny monthly fee" wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't everyone flock there? Is everyone so dumb that they think these huge sites will run for free?? No.. wait I think I've answered my own question..
My instance preemptively defederated from Threads, but I'm assuming those ads are going to be served to Threads users via API, right, and not federated out?
My instance preemptively defederated from Threads, but I’m assuming those ads are going to be served to Threads users via API, right, and not federated out?
Things don't really federate out with ActivityPub, they federate in. To receive off-site content, you have to subscribe to it.
Who is going to subscribe to a Threads ad bot?
Right, and I'm assuming Threads works on the Mastodon-style user follow paradigm, which means, currently, anyway, Lemmy wouldn't be able to follow them directly.
But the ad-bot could, in theory, tag a Lemmy community and have that show up on Lemmy (at least, that seems to be how Mastodon content arrives here).
Another bot that may be running on your instance, so all those things start showing up for everyone else.
If Meta threw up ads as ActivityPub objects they'd probably be blocked so fast by every instance.
That was quick.
I'm honestly amazed they didn't have ads out of the gate, Meta's whole schtick is advertising and data.
Facebook famously didn't have ads for a long time, even when people were pressuring Zuck to add them to keep the site from going running out of capital. Call it a loss leader, call it enshittification or market capture, whatever. Most companies that can afford to will start out being really great to their users, and once they have captured a section of the market, they start clawing more of that value back for themselves and their investors.
You've got ads. Eventually but full-blown ads.
Not just HV but full-blown ads.
Does Threads use Fediverse tho?
It uses activity pub, it's not part of the fediverse. It's getting defederated by everyone else because of Metas lack of moderation abilities among other issues.
It does
That didn’t take long
Good, the sooner they run it into the ground the better.
Still doesn't support instance migration tho, hmm
Nice. Get ready to scale your servers, folks!
You overestimate how many people use threads. It's mostly corporate accounts that post but don't use the platform, and a bunch of bros that click ads to begin with.
I got out just in time, it seems.
How much longer will Bluesky survive without doing the same?
It's either ads or a paid subscription. One of the two are inevitable, because running infrastructure to support millions of users ain't free.
you were in?!
lol. I mean. It was inevitable considering every other shit meta product.
Blue Sky is up next!
Whats threads??
Meta/Facebook made a Twitter/X clone called Threads. They enabled activity pub, so that Fediverse users can be followed from Threads and vice versa.
And this is why /s is required lol
Threads. A thread:
🧵
(2/x) The inciting incident was the muskrat proposing a purchase of Twitter.
Are there any instances that are actually federated with Threads?
I knew that there where some larger masto servers that tried to stay neutral but at least a lot of them switched when meta basically said they remove fact checking and let sexism and racism run ranpant without any consequences
It hasn’t come to Lemmy yet but when it does it appears only lemmy.world and sopuli.xyz is linked according to the fedi block list. Lemmy.world’s admin post about it seemed like they’re open to it. Both at https://slrpnk.net/comment/11960621 But no, no one’s seeing threads posts, yet.
Good news I guess!