The sudden presence of Threads, and its use by people who are literally saying “I never had Twitter and don’t know what this is” is a reminder to those of us in the world of the open web and blogging:

For lots of people Meta = the web. And it has been so for a long time.

@SimonWoods I know people who, if you swapped their computer for one that only ran Facebook, wouldn't notice the change.

@SimonWoods @JohnBrady Before there was FaceBook, AOL was the web for millions or tens of millions. Just think of the movie "You've Got Mail."

@ReaderJohn On a whim I just looked at aol.com: it's still there! You can still use it as an email service! It's gone through the familiar process of being bought up by others (Yahoo, Verizon) but has somehow escaped being shut down. I like to imagine some loyal user who booted up one of those discs we all used to get in the mail, and has been using it ever since.

@JohnBrady 1. I forgot the disks in the mail. 2. I honestly don't remember if I ever used AOL email; I think not, as I was a friend of a techy in the mid-90s (actually, the Greek kid who started my ball rolling toward Orthodoxy; I pray for him and his every day).

@ReaderJohn Yahoo! was the internet for me when I got started online in the late '90s. It was a great place to start while I learned how to find my own way around.