After a year of being exclusive to beta users, the new social network is now accessible to everyone, but its ability to retain users is uncertain.
Last week marked the opening of Bluesky to the public. After a year of being limited to an invite-only closed beta, anyone can now create an account using just an email address.
Despite invitations losing some of their appeal in recent months (I have five unused ones, despite attempts), there was evident pent-up demand. Within just two days, the platform attracted over a million new signups. To put this in perspective, it took Bluesky over three months from the launch of its iOS app last February to reach 70,000 users.
This slow growth has been both a blessing and a curse for Bluesky. On one hand, the beta phase served its purpose, enabling the company to refine its service based on feedback from a smaller but dedicated user base.
Over the past year, Bluesky has developed a range of moderation tools supporting its decentralized social networking approach, where users can choose to engage with or avoid content like nudity, violence, and hate speech. It has expanded to Android and web platforms, established a cohesive visual identity featuring a butterfly emblem reminiscent of Twitter’s bird. In contrast, Elon Musk’s platform has altered its visual branding, substituting some Twitter elements with a double-struck 𝕏.
However, the gradual growth also meant Bluesky lacked a standout moment. Many new users experienced a surge of excitement upon gaining access to the platform, only to realize it offered less content compared to Twitter’s heyday.
Once fully developed, Bluesky aims to strike a balance between serving as a direct alternative to Twitter and offering a fully decentralized model akin to Mastodon, one of the prominent post-Twitter social networks. Like Mastodon, Bluesky’s infrastructure should eventually enable accounts to persist independently of the company behind it. However, unlike Mastodon, Bluesky is less inclined to emphasize its technological disparities with Twitter, with most users expected to remain on the official app and service for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, there’s Threads, Meta’s Twitter counterpart, which boasts the largest user base among the three platforms mentioned. Despite this, it has made little impact on broader cultural discourse. Its policy of restricting political content, as outlined in Threads’ platform safety policies, further dampens its influence. This situation mirrors earlier stages of online culture; Twitter wielded significant influence despite its smaller size compared to Facebook, and TikTok similarly dominates discussions despite YouTube’s larger user base.
