the case against threads

The case against Threads

Mark Schaefer
5 min readJul 6, 2023

Threads.

Of course you know about it. It’s the hottest thing in social media since … Mastodon?

But I don't think Meta’s Twitter killer is going to work as a social media platform because I’ve seen this song and dance before, and it didn’t work then, either. So let’s explore today the case against Threads.

What’s the problem?

For a new social media platform to succeed — or for any business to succeed— it has to solve a customer problem. Threads is the same as Twitter, with far less meaningful functionality. So I am truly struggling to see the business case here. What problem is solved by Threads?

Most people say it is the place for Twitter haters. But so was Mastadon and Bluesky. Are you going to Bluesky every day instead of Twitter? That’s what I thought.

Let’s not forget that Google Plus was the place for Facebook haters. I was the only blogger in the universe who predicted G+ would not work — on the very day it was launched.

Same reason — we already had a social network. It was called Facebook. G+ did not solve a unique problem. It was just for haters. I wrote at the time that it is far easier to move to a new house in another city than to move to a new social network and take your friends, your communities, your games, etc. along…

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Mark Schaefer

Keynote speaker, marketing strategy consultant, Rutgers U faculty and author of 10 books including KNOWN, Marketing Rebellion, and Belonging to the Brand!