According to The Verge, Meta’s Threads app had a massive 2023, ranking as Apple’s second-most-downloaded iOS app of the year behind only ChatGPT. The platform now boasts 400 million monthly active users and 150 million daily actives. Connor Hayes, the head of Threads, says the current growth strategy heavily relies on promoting Threads content within Instagram and Facebook feeds to drive downloads. The ultimate goal, however, is to wean users off those promotions so they “wake up in the morning and just want to open the app.” Hayes is focused on making Threads “the place on the internet to talk about what’s going on in the world,” by targeting specific verticals like sports and entertainment. The app is also testing ads in four countries, including the US, with plans to ramp up ad load slowly over the next year.
The Morning Habit Problem
Here’s the thing: wanting to be the app people open first is every social platform’s dream. But Hayes admitting that they’re still doing “a lot of work” in Instagram and Facebook to promote Threads is a huge tell. It basically means the app’s growth is still synthetic, fueled by Meta’s massive existing networks. The “wean you off” plan sounds good in theory, but it’s incredibly hard to execute. Remember when Facebook tried to make you use its separate “Messenger” app? People hated it. Forcing a habit is different from earning one. And with 150 million daily users against 400 million monthly, there’s a pretty significant chunk of people who aren’t checking it every day. Building that daily, intentional habit is the real mountain to climb.
The Creator Conundrum
This is where Threads’ strategy gets really interesting, and maybe a bit shaky. There’s no direct monetization on the platform—no revenue sharing, no paywalls. Instead, Hayes is pitching Threads as a traffic channel to other places like Spotify, Substack, or Patreon. That’s a clever way to attract creators without building a complex monetization engine from scratch. But is it enough? It turns Threads into a middleman, a billboard for your *actual* business elsewhere. For a creator, that’s fine as a supplement, but it doesn’t incentivize creating exclusive, platform-defining content. Why pour your best work into a place that just sends people away? It feels like a stopgap. And while they’re testing ads, that revenue is for Meta, not creators. This feels like the biggest long-term risk to becoming a “must-open” app. If the top voices aren’t fully invested, what’s the daily draw?
Algorithm Steering And Identity
The “Dear Algo” feature they’re testing is genuinely smart. Asking for “more football, but not Patrick Mahomes” is a level of granular control users have wanted for years. It shows how far content understanding with LLMs has come. But it also highlights Threads’ continued identity crisis. Is it a real-time news hub? A sports talk haven? A cozy group chat like Discord? Hayes name-dropped Reddit and Discord as competitors, not just X. That’s revealing. They’re casting a wide net, trying to be a bit of everything to everyone who wants to talk. Prioritizing content from the last 24 hours is a direct shot at X’s real-time strength, but then downplaying news as a focus vertical is confusing. You can’t be the place to talk about the world while not focusing on one of the main things happening in it. The federation with Mastodon? Basically on life support, not a priority. It seems like Threads is still figuring out what it is when it’s not just “the not-X app.”
The Long Game
So, can Threads pull it off? Meta has the resources and the user base to keep pushing indefinitely. The slow, deliberate ad rollout is prudent—nobody wants another X-like experience where the platform feels strangled by ads. But the core challenge remains behavioral. Getting someone to open Instagram is a reflex at this point. Getting them to open Threads requires a reason. The vertical-by-vertical approach makes sense, but it’s a grind. And without a direct payoff for creators, building those vibrant, vertical-specific communities will be tough. I think Threads’ success hinges on one thing: can it create moments, inside jokes, and cultural ripple effects that originate *on Threads* and nowhere else? That’s what makes a morning habit. Not promotions. Not even a good algorithm. It’s FOMO. Right now, that FOMO still lives on other platforms. Hayes and his team have a year of growth to be proud of, but the real work is just beginning.
