It’s obvious that brands and influencers were offered the chance to be pre-verified and, while I haven’t seen direct evidence myself, the word is that they could get some kind of FB/insta promotional discounts by being there to post on day 0 with a witty canned line about how great it was to be on threads
So when the app opened to the masses, they don’t have to follow anybody or wait for their friends before it had “value”. They open it up and there are a bunch of brands and “personalites” making it looking like it’s already alive and the place to be
The other stuff will probably come later… although there’s the chance that they’re going after tiktoks model of “we know what you want”