In 2011, Google+ had 10 million users two weeks after the launch.[14] In a month, it had 25 million.[15] In October 2011, the service had 40 million users, according to Larry Page.[16] At the end of 2011, Google+ had 90 million users.[17] In October 2013, approximately 540 million monthly active users used the social layer by interacting with Google+'s enhanced properties, such as Gmail, the +1 button, and YouTube comments.[18] Some 300 million monthly active users participated in the social network by interacting with the Google+ social-networking stream. According to ComScore, the biggest market was the United States followed by India.
False. 2 billion people weren't using the internet 15 years ago. [0]
10 million users in 7 hours already surpasses that [1] Firefox statistic. The rapid growth of Threads is no joke.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273018/number-of-interne...
It's DAU/MAU numbers and retention that make the bigger difference. ActivityPub has had pretty good retention since the early era of Mastodon - not gangbusters growth, but enough for people to feel comfortable with the ecosystem as it stands and uninfluenced by a large instance.
AP's "core experience" is more like a combo of Usenet, web forums and email than XMPP or Twitter - it can be aggregated and surveilled, but the social graph isn't solely in messaging and follower connections, it's in space-making and exclusivity. While individual users can be coerced into centralizing, spaces are a much harder nut and are why little PhpBB forums persist even now. You can have all the users but not the spaces, and if you don't play nice with the spaces, adios.
Where as the entire Fediverse has 11 million registered users in 7 years.
I don't know how that 2M in 2 hours is 'oddly low' but at that rate, Threads will surpass the entire Fediverse in less than 24 hours and will be centralizing the Fediverse when it turns on ActivityPub.