How Meta’s Threads App Is Helping Bring Metaverse & NFTS To The Mainstream Without You Realizing It…

Social went mobile…

Then it went private (https://www.facebook.com/groups/900926109968259?multi_permalinks=2477414682319386)

Then it went interest-based (https://orren.medium.com/social-media-went-private-now-it-does-interest-based-a467a87cf70)

And now it goes public.

What does this mean?

This week Meta released the Threads app, their Twitter clone.

Threads allows Instagram users to port their profile over to Threads directly and follow who they follow on Instagram but in a short text version.

Despite vowing to keep Threads less toxic than Twitter, and likely continue to distract everyone with the public rivalry between Zuckerberg and Musk, they have bigger plans.

But first some context…

The toxicity of Twitter (bots, racists and its 4chan-Esq demise) was already trying to be tackled by:

1) Mastodon (free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services); and
2) Former Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey via Bluesky Social (an initiative to develop a decentralized social network protocol, and an associated social networking service.)

Mastodon has been around a while but failed to get traction because of its User Interface (it’s hard to use, even for a techy.)

Bluesky Social still hasn’t shipped to market and probably missed their window of time (I was very excited about it.)

Regardless, both of these are being built on blockchain principles (i.e. “self-hosted” in the former, and “decentralized” in the latter.)

This is likely in reaction to users’ despise of billionaires profiting off their content.

What most missed with Threads is that they have the same plan — for a “Fediverse”.

A Fediverse is a portmanteau of the word “federation” and “universe”)

The Fediverse will be “a social network of different servers operated by third parties that are connected and can communicate with each other.”

And I suspect a precursor to the metaverse we most associate with — virtual visual reality — which is part of Meta’s grand plan all along.

“Each server on the Fediverse operates on its own but can talk to other servers on the Fediverse that run on the same protocol.”

That is a blockchain in principle.

If you read their fine print (https://help.instagram.com/169559812696339) carefully and specifically:

“Changes you make to your posts will affect how they appear on Threads, but may not change how it shows up on other servers.”

Each of your posts will act like an NFT and your Threads (or Mastodon) account will act like an NFT wallet:

Once Threads sets up this decentralized feature, users will be able to migrate their Threads accounts (and posts) to any other compatible social networks.

This is the reason you cannot delete your Threads account once it is set up!

That sounds bad, but is it?

Yes and no…