mekka okereke Jul 15, 2023

The fastest growing app will have the worst retention rates.

Imagine a world where all users are the same, regardless of social network. Imagine that if 1000 users start using a social app on day 1, that only:
* 900 of them will be using it on day 2
* 800 of them on day 7
* 600 of them on day 30
* 500 of them on day 365

Now imagine if network A hasn't grown in 5 years, but has 100MM users. Network B is doubling every 2 days, and is currently at 100MM users.

Which will have worse retention?

Show threadmekka okereke Jul 15, 2023

I keep seeing journalists / analysts missing this insight. It's framed as "Everyone is leaving Mastodon!" Or "Threads is already dying!" Neither is necessarily true.

This is a natural phenomena that always happens with rapidly growing apps and networks.

A better way to think of it is "Of every 1000 users who sign up, only 1000/N of them will be here in a year, so discount the growth rate."

It's scary to know what N is. And it changes over time. And it can change rapidly.

Show threadBadscrew
@mekkaokereke it's not journalists / analysts but "journalists" / "analysts"
Jul 15, 2023 at 10:19pmWeb