Social networks aren’t social any longer, nor even networks really

livemint.com:

ChatGPT rocketing to a million users in five days and 100 million in two months. No sooner had the world let out its collective breath, the second bolt thundered in on 5 July 2023, obliterating ChatGPT’s record, with Meta’s social media app warping past the 100 million download mark in just five days. Admittedly, Threads had an unfair advantage, it had a 2.3 billion strong user launchpad in the form of Instagram, and all it had to do was get less than 5% of Insta users to sign up for Threads.

Irrespective, it was a striking debut, and Threads seemed poised to overpower Twitter, now renamed X, in the social media cage fight. Zuckerberg had chosen his moment well; users were clamouring for an alternative to Twitter, and Musk also seemed to be doing everything to destroy his new company: renaming it an unwelcome X, laying off almost 75% of the work force, and also antagonizing its users as well as advertisers, both of which are the life blood of any social network. Less than a month thereon, it was not Twitter but Threads which seemed to be hanging by a thread.

As of 31 July, the DAU (daily active user) count of Threads had fallen by a drastic 82%, according to Sensor Tower, a digital intelligence company. Even its usage fell dramatically from 14 sessions per user a day to 2.6 sessions, and the daily average usage time plummeted from 19 minutes to 2.9 minutes. The precipitous fall continues, with its DAU count falling by about 1% a day.

I am one of these users. I installed the app on Day 1, and it must have been a week since I went there, and my last post was probably a month back. So, what is happening? Well, the answer is stark: social networking is neither social, nor it is a network.