The description of Threads in this article matches well with my experiences there. It shoves advertisers and influencers at you from your first moments there, while also making it hard to find the people you want to interact with and the content you want to see.
Despite all the complaints about Mastodon being confusing and hard to use, it was much easier (and faster) to build a feed that suited my needs here than on Threads.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/07/threads-shopping-mall-not-a-public-square/