Threads Review: Observations, Opinions and Reflections

Over the past two weeks, I have been making a conscious decision to incorporate Threads into my daily social media routine. The goal was simple — to evaluate its features, scrutinize its user experience, and gauge it’s potential. Whether it managed to impress, disappoint, or a bit of both, this review will give you my firsthand experience navigating Threads.

Instagram ancestry

We are still in the app’s early days but for now, its Instagram heritage is clearly showing. For those who use Instagram daily, this can be a source of familiarity but personally I found the experience lacking.

The biggest letdown is that there is no search function, meaning there’s no path for content discovery. I would love to know what Threads’ users are saying about virtual reality but cannot access that information. There’s no search option on Instagram either, but Instagram is primarily image-based and network-oriented. Treads is not.

On Instagram, you scroll through posts by your friends, acquaintances and influencers and most users don’t feel the need to go beyond that. Instagram’s algorithm will recommend new people to follow but tends to keep users in their space. There’s no real need for a search function.

TwitterX, on the other hand, is quite generous in its understanding of what constitutes as your network. Users often wind up interacting with strangers and people outside of their direct reach simply because of how retweets work and how various people engage in (often divisive) group discussions. This is not everyone’s cup of tea. Those experiencing TwitterX burnout might welcome the less confrontational and more close-knit nature of Threads.

Interactions & Posting

Which brings me to the other point. It’s not just the layout and software that borrows heavily from Instagram. It’s also the entire culture. Even if millions of users came over from X, the vast majority of the 150 million users will be Instagram natives. As a result, the userbase crossover between Instagram and Threads is much bigger than between Threads and any other social platform. Instagram users have their habits and conventions, so Threads still exhibits a lot of characteristics of the Instagram culture.

Again, for some, this might be a source of familiarity but I found the interactions to be too superficial. A lot of posts (threads) will have plenty of likes but no comments, or just comments consisting of emojis. Accounts with a large following will be hesitant to engage with followers. Post exchanges between celebrities, retweets that either amplify or bash, all that is almost non-existent. Because Instagram is based on a mostly unidirectional creator-follower dynamic, Threads has inherited a similar feel by extension.

Browsing and Scrolling

One thing that some users poined out was the lack of an option to switch the recommendation algorithm off — a feature that’s available not just on TwitterX but also on most of its alternatives. On Tuesday, the platform addressed this feedback by introducing a new tab. This tab enables users to view chronological posts from the accounts they follow and grants users more control over their content consumption.

In my case, I was happy with the selection, especially since I didn’t have a substantial Instagram network prior to joining Threads so a chronological feed would make little sense. Suggestions so far seem mostly geo-location based, but this might be different for everyone.

One issue that users currently bring up is a lack of direct messaging (DMs). Others mention no browser or desktop version and no way to embed posts into articles, which limits Threads’ appeal as an “announcement platform”.

A web version of Treads would perhaps incentivize people to post more and longer, especially since Threads offers users a canvas of 500 characters (TwitterX has 280-character limit for unverified users), but again, none of these really bothered me, especially since most of those features are apparently coming soon. Just like with the chronological feed, there’s little doubt that direct messaging, search function and the web version will also make their way into Threads.

There’s something inviting and appealing in the minimalistic approach that Meta has taken with Threads. The design seems barebones but pleasant. I found myself hopping back into the app with pleasure, but then again, I would not spend more than 20 minutes daily, so, for me, it served mostly as an enjoyable distraction rather than a place to find news or network.

Final Thoughts: Is Threads going to make it?

This is still a very fresh and dynamic field and the news keeps coming every day. Just a few days ago, Yahoo reported that Threads’ average daily usage dropped from twenty-one minutes to six but at the same time, new users continued pouring in, with India leading in downloads. Even with the active user drop-off, there are still plenty of people posting and the platform is not looking like it will fail or fade away, as some sceptics have predicted. Mastodon or Bluesky have much smaller engagement numbers than Threads yet people still post there despite having limited reach. There’s no reason to think those who made Threads their primary space would stop either, especially when numbers are much better than on any other X lookalike.

Equally exaggerated are rumours of TwitterX’s death. Its popularity will almost certainly remain substantial. In the coming months, we might see both apps compete for user attention, but ultimately X is too big of a platform to just fail instantly in a dramatic fashion. Should X falter, it’s unlikely to happen suddenly, but rather as a result of a steady decline in user engagement coupled with gravitation toward alternative platforms. If the trend continues, and one user migrates to Mastodon, another to BlueSky and another to Threads then it is possible that, eventually, TwitterX’s dominance might suffer death by a thousand cuts.

As for Threads — it’s not X, but it’s not Instagram either. It will need to create its own mode of operating and its own culture. It will be up to those who decide to remain on Threads to shape the values and the future of this new platform. Even though this review is complete, I’m not uninstalling Threads. The platform got me curious enough and I will continue to hop back in once in a while.