Tech
The best Twitter alternatives worth checking out
We’ll be straight with you. There’s no 1:1 Twitter replacement, but there are plenty of social apps that might be worth substituting into your obsessive timeline-checking routines if you’re done with Twitter for whatever reason (we can think of plenty).
Twitter’s current situation — advertisers leaving, Nazis logging back on — presents an opportunity to check in with ourselves about what we really want out of a social network.
We don’t just have to use social apps because they’re there, and they’re really sticky. Users should get something out of the exchange, particularly on ad-supported services. Whether that means building a following for your fledgling business or connecting with people in communities you care about, social media should serve a function — not just drain away the hours in the day.
Happily, there are options. Decentralized projects offer different experiences that are less beholden to corporate whims, while less traditional social platforms might serve up a totally different set of interactions and experiences. But that’s OK. Twitter wasn’t perfect, and while it was and arguably still is pretty essential for real-time events and news-gathering, its most engaged users didn’t always enjoy spending time there.
Here are some options to consider.
Threads
Meta’s Threads has cemented itself as one of the most popular and viable Twitter alternatives out there. Although the app was a bit scarce when it first launched in July 2023, Threads has slowly but surely been adding requested features, such as trending lists and a desktop version.
One advantage that Threads has over Twitter is its integration with Instagram. You can log in with your Instagram credentials, and it’s easy to find people to follow because the app knows who you’re already connected with. Plus, you can cross-post from Instagram and Facebook to Threads.
Another advantage that Threads has over Twitter is the platform’s integration with the fediverse, which is a collection of social networks running the ActivityPub protocol.
While Threads is a great Twitter alternative in almost all aspects, some may find that it lags behind on news, sports, and pop culture events. It’s worth noting that Meta has also distanced itself and its platforms from politics.
It’s worth noting that while Threads offers a basic Twitter-like experience, it doesn’t include features such as long video, direct messages, or live audio rooms.
Mastodon
Mastodon is one of the most-discussed homes for fleeing Twitter users — and with good reason.
The service is designed in a way that decentralizes power and moderation decisions, obviating the concerns about one person setting platform-wide rules based on a whim.
Mastodon works a lot like Twitter, allowing users to share real-time thoughts to an account and reshare posts by others. But that’s mostly where the similarities end. Unlike traditional social networks, Mastodon is an open source option, which means that rather than all users being in one big basket with one set of rules, you’ll need to select a server (smaller basket) to join.
If you get sick of it or disagree with those moderation decisions, you can migrate elsewhere. You can still follow and interact with people on other servers so you don’t need to agonize too much over that choice, but that decentralized ethos colors the whole experience.
Like a choice of server, you’ll also have a choice of which app to use on mobile. Mastodon’s open source nature means you’ve got more choice all around, but the downside is that the extra steps might be off-putting to people who want a more straightforward sign-up process.
That said, if you’re tired of the cynicism and harassment on Twitter, the vibe on Mastodon is pretty chill right now. If any of this sounds interesting, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Bluesky
Bluesky is a fast-growing alternative to Twitter and was developed in parallel with Twitter and spearheaded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Like Mastodon, Bluesky is all about the decentralized social network — that is, giving people the tools they need to form their own communities.
Bluesky is ultimately a decentralized version of Twitter. The service lets you post text and images, reply and repost, and message users. However, unlike Twitter, Bluesky lets you set up your own server if you want and pick your own algorithm. Bluesky also lets you decide how much or little you want your content moderated, as it lets you subscribe to independent moderation services.
New users get access to the app’s “Starter Pack” feature, which creates a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow in order to find interesting content as soon as you create an account.
Like Threads, the app was pretty bare bones when it first launched to the public in February, but Bluesky has since rolled out many requested features, such as native support for videos and DMs.
Discord
Discord doesn’t really work like Twitter at all, but hear us out: It’s one of the best social apps around.
The app was originally created to give gamers a better way to chat, but since then it has expanded well beyond that initial vision. Like Mastodon, Discord doesn’t offer a giant “public square,” instead offering topic and interest-based servers that anyone can join and hang out in. Discord offers regular text chat within its server-based channels, as well as seamless voice chat and some other experiences, like streaming a game to friends or queueing up YouTube videos together. Some of the most popular servers have hundreds of thousands of members, but you could also just curate one for friends or family.
Through servers, Discord offers some of the same federation benefits as Mastodon without the open source stuff that spooks some people during onboarding. And Discord isn’t going anywhere anytime soon: It’s a mature company with a thriving user base and a sustainable business built around paid subscriptions. That kind of stability goes a long way for social apps, which historically are prone to fizzling out and vanishing overnight.
The downside is that Discord is more about chatting than posting. The app’s Slack-like interface refreshes in real time and in a busy Discord, or even one with a few hundred active members, it’s easy to lose track of conversations fast. The company knows that and is actively building more tools that enable asynchronous interactions, so that’s something to watch out for.
Tumblr
Although you may not see it as an alternative to Twitter, there are some similarities between the two platforms that make it a notable contender.
Even though Tumblr teeters more toward a microblogging site than a traditional social network, it features a feed that displays posts from people you follow in a similar way to Twitter. Tumblr lets you post content with images, GIFs, videos, and more. You can leave notes on a post, which are similar to comments. You can also like, share, and repost content on the platform. Tumblr also has a trending topics section like Twitter, and it has a chat feature that’s similar to direct messages on Twitter.
Tumblr offers more flexibility than Twitter, while being easy to set up and use. You can use Tumblr for free or opt for an ad-free experience with additional features for $4.99 per month or $39.99 a year. Given Tumblr’s ability to stay alive despite its fair share of changing ownership, we don’t think it’s going anywhere, which makes it an ideal alternative to Twitter. It’s also a place with its own unique humor and a chaotic culture that’s a massive part of Tumblr’s unique appeal.
Tech
Cathie Wood’s ARK makes its first lead investment in startup Lucra — and it isn’t AI
ARK Invest Venture Fund has made its first-ever lead investment in an early-stage startup called Lucra, firm founder Cathie Wood told TechCrunch.
“We feel pretty excited about it,” Wood (pictured above) said in the recent interview regarding the investment in the startup.
Lucra developed a software platform that reimagines corporate loyalty programs into interactive, esports-like events such as tournaments where customers can play each other, even betting or winning cash or company giveaways. The startup said its customers include Five Iron Golf, Chess Kings, and Dave & Buster’s.
Lucra announced on Wednesday that it raised a $20 million Series B, led by the ARK fund, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Astralis Capital, Harlo Equity Partners, Simplex Ventures, SeventySix Capital, and WTI.
There are a few reasons why the famed financial company has never led a startup deal before. For one, the ARK Invest Venture Fund is not a typical VC fund. It’s an SEC-regulated interval fund (also known as a closed-end mutual fund), meaning anyone can invest in it, for as little as $500. However, it is not traded on a public exchange, so investors cannot sell shares at will. They can sell limited shares on specific dates, quarterly.
Wood also noted that the person running the fund, director of research Nick Grous, “is a tough sell,” leaving startups with the difficult task of getting him excited enough to advocate to lead a deal.
What’s even wilder is that ARK was particularly gun-shy about this sort of business because it got burned after investing in a somewhat similar company a few years ago.
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“We had actually owned a company called Skillz, which kind of operated in this space,” Grous said. “It didn’t work out well for us and many other investors.”
Skillz was a once-hot public company that later became mired in troubles and lawsuits. The big difference, the investor said, is that Lucra is a B2B platform, selling interactive esports as a loyalty program, rather than trying to license and run games directly to consumers.
“Overcoming our initial hurdle, especially given our experience with Skillz, overcoming our reticence, having Nick overcome it, that was our first screen,” Wood said of how this startup convinced her company to write a big check.
In this case, ARK Invest had participated in Lucra’s previous Series A round, and had grown familiar with its business model, its trajectory, and its founder and CEO Dylan Robbins, Grous told TechCrunch.
“We had been in constant communication,” Grous said, adding that his venture-esq fund attempts to have quarterly conference calls with the startups in the portfolio, similar to how public companies report to investors quarterly. ARK mostly works in the public market, offering a slate of publicly traded EFT funds.
Despite already being in the portfolio, Lucra’s founder was grilled numerous times when it came time to buy more shares — first by Grous and then ARK’s investment committee, both he and Wood described.
During those calls, Robbins “had thought about all the things that went wrong” with similar companies like Skillz, as well as with Lucra, and had answers, Wood said. “No matter how many times we went at him, his conviction, there was just no let up,” she described.
It also helped that this company’s financials were promising, it was in an area that ARK knew well, and this was not AI, aka the most hyped, most expensive area these days.
“We’ve been underwriting the sports-betting space, understanding the gamification aspects of entertainment,” Grous said, meaning that the investment firm could “really understand the opportunity here.”
The ARK Invest Venture Fund holds shares of companies like Epic Games, Kalshi, and Discord, for instance. It also holds OpenAI, Anthropic, Replit, Grok, and Perplexity, so it knows the AI scene well.
“We are all over AI, just like everyone else, because it is a massive revolution,” Wood explained. “But in the process, a lot of companies are being neglected.” This means that spotting such potentially neglected companies is “our opportunity because we are doing research in many other areas than AI,” she said.
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Tech
Cosmetics giant Rituals confirms data breach of customer membership records
Netherlands-based cosmetics giant Rituals has confirmed a data breach affecting customers’ personal information after hackers stole reams of data from its membership database.
The company disclosed the breach on Wednesday, according to an email sent to customers that TechCrunch has viewed and verified.
Rituals said it identified an “unauthorized download” of members’ data in April that contained customers’ full name, date of birth, gender, postal and email address, and phone number, as well as their preferred Rituals store and account type.
When reached by TechCrunch, Rituals spokesperson Eline van Malssen said the hacker stole membership data about customers in Europe and the United Kingdom.
TechCrunch has learned that some customers notified by Rituals are based in the United States. The spokesperson confirmed the incident also affects some U.S. customers.
Rituals did not describe the nature of the cyberattack and the company said its investigation was underway to understand how the data breach happened.
The cosmetics giant is the latest retailer to have customer membership data stolen in the past year, following a string of intrusions at U.K. grocery and shopping chain Co-op and Marks & Spencer, among others. Customer records can be attractive targets for hackers who steal the data and extort the company for a ransom in exchange for not publishing the information online.
When reached with questions about the incident, a Rituals spokesperson declined to comment on whether the company received any communication from the hackers, to share a more precise timeline of the breach, or to provide the exact number of affected members, citing unspecified “security reasons.”
According to its website, Rituals has over 41 million customers in its membership database. The retail giant made €2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in revenue in 2025.
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Tech
Rivian R2 production has started despite tornado damage to factory
Rivian has rolled the first customer-ready R2 SUVs off the production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, just days after it was hit by an EF-1 tornado that tore off part of the roof.
Despite the damage, founder and CEO RJ Scaringe told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday morning that Rivian doesn’t expect any delays to the R2’s rollout, which is crucial to the company’s survival.
“The tornado went through the south end of the plant, and ripped the roof off the building, and knocked down some of the plant as well, and so the last 72 hours have been around the clock,” he said. Scaringe explained that Rivian has had to change how and where it brings some materials into the factory to build the R2.
But “we’re not making any changes to the plan,” he said, referring to the company’s production roadmap.
Scaringe wasn’t asked when Rivian will make the first R2 deliveries during the interview. The company has previously said it will start shipping R2 SUVs before the first half of 2026 comes to an end.
Getting the R2 into production is a major milestone for the company. It’s the first production vehicle Rivian has made that has a chance to reach mass-market customers, as it costs far less than the company’s current R1 EVs. It’s also supposed to help the company finally reach profitability after years of losing money on every vehicle it sold.
The company has big expectations for the R2. Rivian told investors earlier this year that it expects to deliver between 20,000 and 25,000 of the SUVs by the end of 2026. If Rivian achieves that, it would become one of the fastest-scaling new EVs ever launched in the U.S., second only to Tesla’s Model Y.
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That said, Rivian is launching with a version of the R2 that costs nearly $13,000 more than the $45,000 price tag the company spent years promoting. The launch edition R2 starts at $57,990, with a slightly cheaper $53,990 variant coming by the end of this year. Rivian won’t sell an R2 for under $50,000 until the first half of 2027, and a true base model starting at $45,000 won’t hit the market until late 2027.
And that’s if the $45,000 R2 ever arrives at all. When Rivian announced pricing for the SUV in March, the company said the base model price will start “around $45,000” — not “at $45,000” as it had promoted on its website as recently as February.
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