When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he laid off (or fired) about 80% of the workforce. Twitter was pretty bloated, so Musk made that change. He got rid of thousands of engineers, many of which Meta then hired to work on Threads.
Now that Threads has launched, some of these ex-Twitter employees are starting to speak out. Of course, they are staying anonymous for now, but one stated that “it feels like revenge time.” They continued that “anything is better than the Twitter we have now.”
Another former Twitter Data Scientist, Melissa Ingle said that “this thing is going to be a monster.” However, she is not yet entirely convinced on Threads just yet, since it shows you posts from people you do not follow yet.
Another former employee, Manu Cornet, had stronger words about Threads, and is not as excited about it. Stating that “Threads introduces nothing new as far as I’ve seen”. While another anonymous ex-Twitter employee said that “I fundamentally don’t understand its existence in the market. Seeing it as a Twitter like raft makes sense, but the problems already arising with EU regulators and it, and its lack of purpose, seem to signal its not there to last.”
Despite this, Threads crosses 70 million signups in under 48 hours
Despite some former Twitter employees being skeptical about Threads, users are flocking to it. Gaining 70 million sign ups in under 48 hours is nothing to be ashamed of. Even if Instagram is the main reason for it. Mastodon has been seen as the “Twitter replacement” since Musk took over in October, and it has only amassed around 13 million accounts.
The real question here is going to be how many stick around. As we’ve seen with Mastodon and Bluesky, lots of people sign up, but not many post or post often. Making it feel more like a ghost town. Which is a throwback to Google+.