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Threads. Meta’s ‘new’ social media site is all anyone is talking about. It’s trending everywhere; on Instagram, on itself and, most hilariously, on Twitter.
Whilst everyone is getting excited about a potential cage fight between Zuckerberg and Musk, I’m more interested in what the release of Threads means for Meta.
More specifically, where does Threads fit into Meta’s journey from Harvard social networking website to overlords of the tech domain?
Join me as I try to pin down just where the world of tech is heading and why there have been so many false starts on the way to unknown destinations.
iPhones to VR: The Beginning
Back in the day, the mid-2000s that is, big tech companies like Apple and Facebook were one-trick ponies.
Apple made iPhones and iPods. Facebook ran a social networking site. Google was just a search engine. Generally, they produced one thing that we bought from them or used. That’s where the relationship between consumer and producer ended.
In that sense, it was pretty simple. We logged on to Facebook, uploaded embarrassing photos, then logged off. The technology that companies offered were accessories to our lives and little more.
Then this wacky, futuristic thing called Virtual Reality started to bubble up. Oculus released the Oculus Rift in 2013, the first commercially available VR headset, which set in motion a shift in what tech companies aspired to be.
The Rift was still a single-purpose product. At the time, it was mainly a way for YouTubers to show off playing video games in a unique way. But it laid the groundwork for something bigger. VR had the potential to be a lifestyle, a way to completely redesign how we lived. No longer would devices be interfaces we stared at and tapped, but things we could meld with.
In this form, tech companies saw a new opportunity. They could not only be long-term service providers, but they could also shape how society operated wholesale. Whoever could make good VR could also own the virtual world it enabled.
That’s a long way from poking your friends on Facebook.
Metaverses: The Original Sin
In retrospect, metaverses were the next logical step following VR. But when they first came about, they seemed like an utterly wild and absurdly futuristic concept.
By Meta’s definition, a metaverse is a completely virtual world where we meet, work and do everything else we normally would. Of course, this is only enabled by the use of a good VR/AR headset.
Meta, née Facebook, seemingly gambled their entire future on the success of their own Metaverse.
At first pitched as a revolutionary new way to live, where virtual and physical realities are blended, it eventually evolved into some strange game/alternate reality called Horizon Worlds. And it flopped. Big time.
Meta’s metaverse failed to even fire its primary engines, seeing user retention drop rapidly after a few months. It’s not even the best metaverse game. That title belongs to Roblox. Therefore, it wasn’t long before Zuckerberg cooled the love affair and moved on to his next beau; AI.
Metaverses represent a very obvious way in which tech companies have overreached. Facebook (the company) developed from social network to VR headset developer to metaverse pioneer. Then people realised that metaverses are an incredibly hard sell and offer very little in the way of practical benefit.
Still, that progression is astronomical! The slice of the tech market they are looking to cover is vast when compared to their humble origins, or even their entry into VR headsets. And if your metaverse is the one everyone uses, then you’ve got control over ads, data and the tech that people need to use in order to access it. Put simply, it’s a very milky cash cow.
Meta wanted it badly and probably still does. But Metaverse Monopoly will have to wait, they are currently very uncool. And if there’s one thing Zuck hates, it’s being seen as uncool.
So where does that leave Meta?
Threads: De-evolution?
So where the heck does Threads fit into this story?
An old school, plain text, no bells and whistles, zero-VR-goggles-in-sight social media platform?
Eh?!?
Meta was meant to be evolving into the dominant force in future technology. Building a metaverse that would be fun and useful, all made accessible to more people through their relatively low-cost Quest 3 headset. Sure, it might take some work and convincing but what new thing doesn’t?
But, as it turns out, a by-the-books social media platform has turned out to be by far the most popular thing Meta has done since Farmville.
Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising. Twitter is enduringly popular, even with recent tumultuous times, and Threads seems to be cashing in on both of these aspects. 100 million new users in a week is staggering. Twitter only has 350 million total!
Who’s to say if this will last or if Threads is actually any good? Either way, I think it is indicative of public attitudes toward future tech. Or should I say futuristic tech. Technology that feels alien and disconnected from our everyday lives.
People don’t really like hugely disruptive things. AI has met a wall of resistance and apprehension even though it has been used in society for decades. VR is still a fringe technology and metaverses are dead in the water. The same goes for NFTs and cryptocurrencies.
Threads is comforting, it taps into what we already know. Ultimately, that doesn’t scare us.
Threads final thoughts…
The spanner in the works here is Apple. Usually, whatever they release becomes hugely successful and useful. Enter the Vision Pro.
Already, the buzz around Apple’s headset is palpable amongst professionals and the general public. And Vision Pro does genuinely seem like a game-changer. Especially when the price eventually comes down.
But even then, I think grand, fundamentally transformative projects like the metaverse will remain stubbornly unpopular. I can see the Vision Pro becoming a household object, used for gaming and watching movies, but I just don’t see people living eternally in a blended reality.
Meta’s failures have already proved this theory. People want useful and interesting accessories in their lives. But ultimately, people often like what they already know.
Tech trends will undoubtedly continue to be dictated by what is flashy and futuristic. But until that tech becomes actually useful, or no longer feels overly disruptive, companies like Meta will be anchored by consumer comforts.
