[chrisnight]

This is indeed true and we will have to see how the numbers settle as we go along.

However I would be surprised if Meta doesn’t continue to possess well above a supermajority of the userbase until another large corporation embraces ActivityPub.

[nobody9999]

>However I would be surprised if Meta doesn’t continue to possess well above a supermajority of the userbase until another large corporation embraces ActivityPub.

That's likely true. But that doesn't force me to interact with that user base (I don't interact with them now and nothing of value is lost, so why should I start?) in the Fediverse.

If I had an Instagram/Threads account, I would be forced to do so. I don't, so I'm not.

So many folks here and elsewhere complain about the garbage in their "feeds" from the centralized "social media" sites, but (apparently) don't realize they don't have to see that garbage, or advertising or posts that are about/from topics/persons they don't care about.

And so the question I'll ask you is: Why should I care how many Threads users exist? I have no interest in interacting with them and am not forced to do so.

[stormbrew]

I think that's true, though I also think the fediverse (but not necessarily Mastodon specifically) will outlive threads.

But I think the really big question will be: in 3-6 months is meta putting out DAU and/or MAU numbers for threads separate from Instagram's?

Until then you can only guess how "big" it really is. I don't personally find the numbers so far all that impressive: it's a sub-10% conversion rate from insta daily active users and I think behind the celebratory face they're putting forward that might not be what they were hoping for.

But mostly I see this trend everywhere where people give a lot of latitude to things like threads and Twitter and then give the most pessimistic read of the state of Mastodon.

If Mastodon were a startup and "centralized" its growth, bumpy as it is, would be the darling of the tech press. This is really obvious because every article about the fall of Twitter lists at least one and often several networks that have worse numbers and worse growth than Mastodon as if they're the next big thing.

Though maybe that'll change now that threads has bought its first 100m users.