Watching Meta navigate the complex roll-out of its potential Twitter killer is offering entrepreneurs everywhere plenty of valuable insights.
You’ve surely seen the news that Meta and Mark Zuckerberg launched a Twitter competitor called Threads. Along with that, you’ve also surely seen reports that Threads amassed somewhere around 100-gagillion-trillion-billion new users in its first 83 minutes of existence (note: all numbers are approximations). The sudden launch and meteoric growth of Threads was certainly interesting to watch and discuss, but, from an entrepreneurial perspective, the most important data is coming a couple weeks after its launch.
According to industry sources, daily active users on Threads has dropped 70%. Meanwhile, average time on site is 4 minutes (versus 30 minutes for Twitter).
As someone who teaches entrepreneurship for a living, I want to discuss what’s happening and why it matters. But first, I’m going to borrow a reliable pedagogical tool from my trusty bag of professor tricks to test your knowledge of the situation. That’s right: It’s pop quiz time!
(Don’t worry… the quiz is multiple choice.)
The most appropriate way to respond to recent news reports about Threads’ atrocious decline in usage is to:
A) Make a casual shrugging gesture
B) Give a condescending smirk
C) Laugh hysterically as the schadenfreude overtakes you
D) All of the above
Honestly, any answer is fine so long as it identifies what’s happening with Threads as unsurprising. The “correct” answer depends more on how much you care about Mark Zuckerberg and the larger Meta entity. Most people are somewhere around an A. Elon Musk is closer to C. Regardless, no matter the answer, let’s just be clear that the precipitous decline in Threads usage is an inevitability.
The decline in usage for threads shouldn’t even be “news.” It was a foregone conclusion from the moment Threads launched because it follows a fundamental law of…