What if someone invented Instagram without the cute golden retriever photos, without any of the fun? What if someone invented Twitter without any of the serious and snarky back-and-forth about news, politics, ideas, or essential information about weather or pandemics.

Someone did. … It’s called Threads, and it hit a record by gathering more than 100m registrations in its first five days of existence. Of course, it did this by inviting its 1.8 billion Instagram users to use those credentials and import followers from Instagram to Threads. So it was easy. Easy ain’t always interesting, though. And there is hardly anything interesting about the technology or the content on Threads.

[Twitter still has its issues. I spent all morning being “rate limited,” for instance, even though I am a paying member. But at least it has a purpose and is built for real information exchange, and most importantly, stopped collaborating with the Ministry of Truth when Musk bought it. I’ll stick with the problems rather than throw in with the collaborators. — Ed]