Why is Threads bleeding users as everyone returns to Twitter?

Threads by Instagram is losing its momentum. According to Google Trends reports, interest in the app has dropped by 94% after gathering 150 million signups within the first week. In addition, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not threaded in the past four days, which has led to netizens declaring that the billionaire has abandoned his platform.

According to reports, the total active user account has dropped by about 20% since it peaked last week. However, the worst hit statistic is retention: which dropped by 50% from about 20 minutes to just 10 minutes. Retention is a very important stat for any social media website.

Do note that Threads draws about 100 million active users weekly, which is massive for a new platform. However, established social media apps like Twitter and Instagram regularly draw about a quarter to half a billion users every 7 days.

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Why are people leaving Threads for Twitter?

Although several factors led to this sudden dip following the launch period, we will list the most obvious reasons.

Threads was initially launched on July 4 to take on the popular microblogging website Twitter. With strong promises like zero ads and a decentralized fediverse, the app saw the highest adoption rates in social media history. It set the record for the fastest to 1 million, 100 million, and now 150 million sign-ups. It broke the record previously set by the AR video game Pokemon Go (which logged 150 million downloads in three months).

That said, as the news of the new platform faded, so did adoption rates. Retention rates have also dropped, according to a tracking firm. This comes amidst the rise of concerns surrounding data usage and privacy. In addition, the app hasn't introduced any new features to the platform either, given that it already lacks quite a few to take on Twitter.

In addition to all of this, the Elon Musk-owned platform recently started sharing ad revenues with creators. Some Twitter creators have gotten as much as $10,000. MrBeast received $25,000 as his first payment. This has led to increased faith and engagement boosts, enabling more users to return to Twitter. In contrast, Threads is ad-free, meaning users can't monetize on the platform.

Threads has some other restrictions that act as icing on the cake: it is not available in the EU. Since the app couldn't meet the set guidelines regarding privacy and data concerns, the Meta-owned platform was blocked in the entire region of 27 countries, contributing to a total of 450 million high PCI users.

The lack of enough features and retention-boosting mechanisms seems to be taking the better of this text-based conversational augment to Instagram.