Threads and Artifact are case studies in how to address user needs in the right way versus wrong way

When I first heard about Threads, I thought "the people who made Instagram could make a really cool Twitter alternative." I was excited and thought we might see something unique but also useful. Instead we got Threads - a poor copycat of Twitter that missed many of the basics (like seeing what your followers were posting), was overly eager for stats vs engagement (celebrity engagement but not personal and an early launch that has had awful churn as a result), and didn't innovate (just like Stories, Reels and the other copies before). Threads wasn't the app Instagram would make. It was the app Meta would make. It sought out to build a copycat that would address the current user needs and failed to deliver against an incumbent.Meanwhile, Artifact is the app we all really wanted. It's focused on addressing a user need (finding and discussing reputable news and content on the Internet) and has built a Twitter alternative in the process. But it's doing so in a unique way because it's focused on reputable source data and productive conversation. That's where reputation fits in naturally and why the feeds are structured the way they are. It's why AI summarizes articles, it's easy to add and edit posts and why reputable stories (rather than most highly engaged) rise to the top of your feed. It's also why we probably won't have celebrity engagement like Twitter (but a passing novelty in any case). We end up getting most of what we wanted out of Twitter but in a fresh package that can actually add something new to social media and networks.