135 points

Honestly surprised there are no ads yet. I thought that was the whole point of the website…

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145 points

They need to make it nice first, to reel people in. Once they are in and invested, that’s when ads start.

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64 points

Hey, I’ve seen that one!

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16 points

It’s a classic (enshittification tactic)

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35 points

Well that sounds enshitty.

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24 points

wait till you see the -ification.

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28 points

Yep. that’s the classic shitty business model

  • Make a site that’s attractive to use for a lot of people

  • Once you have enough people, lock in the users with network effect, walled garden, etc

  • Use the users to draw in businesses

  • Lock in the businesses and squeeze them for profit.

  • Squeeze users and businesses for money, abandon any maintenance and improvement on the site except for monetization.

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22 points

It’s the 3 D’s.

  1. Develop the product
  2. Draw people in
  3. Dump a nice steamy log on the whole thing
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19 points

They have to build social inertia first. This is something Facebook figured out a long time ago and is well-documented. They were begging for money from investors to keep the site running and Zuck refused to run ads because the site was still growing like crazy.

It might be years yet before they start running ads but rest assured they will eventually.

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15 points

You don’t raise temperature while the frog is in the pond.

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4 points

I don’t understand this metaphor. Is it about frog breeding for later eating? Why else would you want to heat your pond, irrespective of the frog. And why is there a greater incentive to heat the pond when there’s no frog, and vice versa? So many questions!

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12 points

I interpreted it as you don’t heat the pot while the frog is still in the pond. You only apply heat slowly once the front is already in the pot.

Don’t load up the ads until the users are already on Threads. Wait until they are active on Threads, then crank up the ads when it’s more difficult for the users to leave.

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1 point

There was an experiment once where it was determined that a frog with it’s brain removed wouldn’t jump out of slowly heated water but would reflexively jump if placed into already hot water, leading to a myth that a frog won’t leave boiling water if heated gradually enough.

Idioms around frog boiling generally means to make changes slowly and gradually enough that there is minimal reaction from affected parties.

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0 points

Google slow boiling frog

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0 points

I guess the frog has to get into the pot first is their point? I agree that the metaphor is not doing a very good job at conveying whatever was meant though.

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81 points

And this is why it’s not a good idea to federate with Threads.

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43 points

On the contrary, that’s how you get an ad-free access to Threads content.

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27 points

Interesting that you think that I may be interested in Threads content.

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10 points
*

Interesting that you think that I may be interested in Threads content.

I’m not interested in what content you are interested in. You (Edit: Not even you, gravitas_deficiency. Why even interject as if you were the person I replied to?) made a comment regarding blocking Threads content for everyone. Let everyone decide for themselves which accounts to follow, don’t promote not to federate at all just because you personally don’t want to follow accounts there. Just don’t click the follow button, duh.

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6 points

9/10 of the most followed accounts on Fedi are on Threads, so you may not, but clearly many many people do.

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1 point
*

Most people want social media to read and talk about the mundane things that are interesting to them (like sports, or their hobbies, or some new cool bar they want to go on, or some interesting places to travel) instead of using it to doomscroll and display outrage.

If all you want from social media is a place that constantly keeps you anxious and reminds you of how little power you have to change the things you are so pointless worrying about… then sure, Lemmy is more than enough as it is.

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20 points
*

There are myriad reasons not to federate with Threads.

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8 points

Ads don’t federate.

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50 points
*

bold of you to assume that ads won’t just be disguised as regular posts (and therefore federate)

Edit: after reading the article I heavily suspect ads will federate. As is they are just specially marked posts so I see no reason to think they won’t federate.

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12 points

My instance is defederated from threads. At the time I mildly disagreed with that decision. Federated ads would vindicate that decision. I don’t need threads content that badly.

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0 points

No, not bold. You don’t get posts from accounts you don’t follow.

Creating ads as if they are from a person would get Threads instabanned in the EU.

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10 points

That’s why they have stealth enshittification techniques to disguise them.

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1 point

That’s why they have stealth enshittification techniques to disguise them.

Promotional posts don’t magically show up on Mastodon for users who don’t follow the brand account that posted them. That’s not how Mastodon works.

If I were to follow Marvel Comics via Mastodon, boosted a post, then my followers would see the post, just as they would see the post if I made a screenshot from a Marvel tweet and posted that to Mastodon but Marvel posts would not just show up for random Mastodon users just because Marvel paid Meta to promote a post on Threads. Only Threads website and app users would see such posts.

It’s amazing how uninformed Fediverse users are of the basics of how the Fediverse works.

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1 point

I mean they do. And I’m sure they will. But as long as you’re not using Threads they can’t be pushed into your feed.

I assume in the future there will probably be an option to “block Threads accounts except the ones that I specifically follow”.

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1 point

This is how the protocol works.

  1. You only get content from those you follow (in your home feed).

  2. Your server’s local feed will contain all posts made by users on your server.

  3. Your server’s global feed will contain all posts from users someone on your server follows.

Note how #3 isn’t actually a global feed. Spin up your own server at home and it will be the same as your home feed when you’re the only users.

Even if you federate with Threads, there’s simply no way for them to “inject ads” into any of these feeds.

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60 points

Tomorrow.

That’s when.

Stop using meta services.

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43 points

Don’t worry, Threads Pro will have you covered for an ad reduction for 3.99/mo.! And Threads Pro Plus for 5.99/mo. will get rid of them all by 2030!

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2 points

Your prices are optimistically low. They’ll probably be double that and lock features behind the more expensive plan.

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34 points

‘no immediate timeline’ toward monetization

Soo, starting tomorrow

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