There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today.
I think it’s more they’re trying to make a Twitter-killer then kill Mastodon from the inside.
This is the answer. They aren’t stupid, they know that if they just spin up a Twitter clone, nobody will use it. They need a reason to exist. Honestly I don’t think they give a single shit about Mastodon or killing it. But what ActivityPub does, is get them an instant content base. And if they are building their own AI, it’s a whole lot of live conversation for them to train it on.
It also gives them an edge over Bluesky, since no where else is using the Bluesky protocol yet, whereas ActivityPub has all these sites also using it and populated.
Threads wants to be there place where everyone is happening and everyone feels like they need to be, like Twitter was and Bluesky is starting to be. Mastodon was never that. Mastodon, to them, is a tool to use against Twitter and Bluesky for that pop culture spot, not a rival.