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Comment by fastball | Hacker News Reader

Well done on the mildly confusing post.

For people that come straight to the comments – Threads was also what Instagram called a standalone messaging app that they introduced in 2019 and never took off. They shut it down at the end of 2021, which is what this article references.

Apparently they've re-designed it a bit (or started over from scratch) to turn it into a Twitter competitor now that Twitter is a bit... turbulent, and are relaunching in a few days (which is currently being discussed on HN here[1]).

Might've been better to just start with a fresh name rather than resuscitating a brand that has already failed once, but what do I know?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36580192

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I’d never heard about it before the news that a “new” Threads was coming and I’m reasonably online ;)

I’d say the general public don’t know or care about the failed version but will find it easy to try the new one. This is probably the biggest threat to Bluesky gaining tracktion. At least in the medium term.

The name is pretty good too. Instantly conveys it’s purpose.

Seems like they keep restarting and testing new things and failing. I was looking into Threads and there's all these variations, and this one's probably going to suffer the same fate.

BUT, we shouldn't knock them for trying; that's what startups are all about, right?

> BUT, we shouldn't knock them for trying; that's what startups are all about, right?

I am so conflicted about this sentiment. On the one hand, I’m a fan of competition. On another, I dislike the company that is (re-?)entering the market.

I guess I just wish an actual start up were coming in, but I guess that era is over. Consolidation has been successful, and now we’re in this weird world where 5-10 giant megacorps run everything we engage with.

That’s what BlueSky is

Also mastodon isn’t exactly a Silicon Valley startup but they have created the only financially sustainable social network which is a feat in its own right

BlueSky isn't launched yet, and Mastodon is horribly confusing. I'm glad they exist, and I hope they fracture the social media space to challenge the monoliths, but I'm not hopeful.

Threads will either fail like every other instagram spin-off or it will do the instagram thing where instagram copies an app and that feature is reasonably popular within Instagram but people still use the full service app version of the feature like how you can use Snapchat and TikTok within Instagram as Instagram stories and reels.

What part of Mastodon is confusing for you?

How do I know if I want to join an existing instance or create my own? What will I see if I create an account on one instance? How do I discover instances? How does federation work, exactly? Can I federate with an instance because I want to or is there some application process? What happens if I create an account on an instance but I don’t like it?

Here is an announcement of its relaunch as a messaging app. https://archive.is/jTKuL

I’m even more confused now. I’ve used the old Threads until the day it died (quit Instagram after that actually). Wasn’t it always a messaging app?

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