If you think like this you're engineerbrained and don't live in the real world.
The account linking was a quick fix, the app was released early, and the accounts will not be forcibly linked later on. You won't need an Instagram account to sign up to Threads. But still, if you don't have one, just sign up to Instagram as you would Threads, and you already have your account made.
If a structural engineer points out that a bridge is unsafe, you don't call them "engineerbrained" and gesture at all the motorists still using the bridge. Why do we accept this bollocks in software engineering? Meta are not trustworthy and it's reasonable to want nothing to do with them.
I should have said developerbrained. Most developers do not think like engineers. They nitpick specific implementation details because they personally prefer one of the thousands of other ways it could have been implemented. And they fail to understand why this one was chosen, as well as the bigger picture of the project, and then imply that whoever worked on it is an idiot.
> Meta are not trustworthy and it's reasonable to want nothing to do with them.
I agree, but will that prevent the majority of the public from signing up? A bridge will collapse regardless of what the motorists think, but people being ignorant of Meta's misdeeds does mean that Meta's untrustworthiness won't—can't—factor into their decision regarding signups. Maybe Meta will make the news again with another scummy decision, and maybe that'll drive users away—but how many? I suspect it's a small fraction.
'Course, one might be able to make the argument about "the most important N% of users who create most of the content", who are also unusually savvy... I don't know empirical details here.
The account linking was a quick fix, the app was released early, and the accounts will not be forcibly linked later on. You won't need an Instagram account to sign up to Threads. But still, if you don't have one, just sign up to Instagram as you would Threads, and you already have your account made.