Meta’s Threads can’t bet on mass migration from Twitter

Twitter’s move on July 1, 2023, to limit the number of tweets users can see in a day was the latest in a series of decisions that has spurred millions of users to sign up with alternative microblogging platforms since Elon Musk acquired Twitter last year.

In addition to a surge in numbers on Mastodon, the acquisition and subsequent changes

boosted small existing platforms like Hive Social and has spawned brand new upstarts like Spoutible and Spill.


Most recently, the microblogging platform backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky, saw a surge of sign-ups in the days following Twitter’s rate limit, and Meta launched its microblogging platform Threads on July 5.

Threads claimed 30 million users on its first day. Even very different forms of social media such as TikTok are benefiting from what many see as Twitter’s imminent demise. Social media platforms tend not to last forever. Depending on age and online habits there’s probably some platform that you miss, even if it still exists in some form.

Think of MySpace, LiveJournal, Google+ and Vine. When social media platforms fall, sometimes the online communities that made their homes there fade away, and sometimes they pack their bags and relocate to a new home.

The turmoil at Twitter is causing many of the company’s users to consider leaving the platform. Research on previous social media platform migrations shows what might lie ahead for Twitter users who fly the coop.

Regardless of how many people ultimately decide to leave Twitter, and even how many people do so around the same time, creating a community on another platform is an uphill battle.

These migrations are in large part driven by network effects, meaning that the value of a new platform depends on who else is there.