It’s not forced on you. If you don’t download Threads and log in, you’re not on threads.
This is akin to saying Google Calendar is “forced” on you if you have a Gmail account. They are separate services that use a common credential, you are under no obligation to use any or all of those services.
What is Meta doing here? I’m not clear on what the point being made is.
If you’re insinuating that they are doing this to artificially inflate user counts, why wouldn’t they be reporting about how there are 2+ billion threads users in the first week?
They don’t need to manufacture hype - like Meta or not, in the first 96 hours they brought in almost 100 million users. Thats a third of Twitter’s entire active user base, in less than a week.