Threads was able to be pushed through other large commercial platforms, and onboarding was trivial for anyone coming through the portal.
Mastodon lacks that kind of exposure and the onboarding process of choosing an instance makes it feel more confusing.
As a result, Threads starts off with a network effect that is quite a bit more advanced than Mastodon’s. It has more high profile users that maintain an active account. It also claims to want to join the fediverse, which makes users think that they can easily onboard with Mastodon in the near future.
I don’t get it
If people want a twitter alternative, why don’t they just go to mastodon instead of threads?
Mastodon seems to be more confusing than Threads or Bluesky for most users
You badly underestimate the proportion of people who have never heard of Mastadon.
I’d guess there’s a few reasons.
Threads was able to be pushed through other large commercial platforms, and onboarding was trivial for anyone coming through the portal.
Mastodon lacks that kind of exposure and the onboarding process of choosing an instance makes it feel more confusing.
As a result, Threads starts off with a network effect that is quite a bit more advanced than Mastodon’s. It has more high profile users that maintain an active account. It also claims to want to join the fediverse, which makes users think that they can easily onboard with Mastodon in the near future.