This is where experimenting with the public (linked here) vs private Insta account actually worked out. It helped make the Threads transition easy but it still feels duplicative for small accounts (coming from a not-avid Twitter user who just wanted more of a personal vs work divide on Insta).

Just make your insta private and express your public thoughts / photos here, I assumed that was the point. Zoomers have been using finsta's (public decoy/fake insta) for yonks.

Btw you can just delete the threads badge on your Insta profile to remove the link I believe, I'm not sure how to re-add it so I haven't tested it myself.