Bluesky uncovered: separating myth from reality in its post-election surge

Jack Dorsey is Bluesky’s link to X 

This is somewhat true. The platform was initially a project Dorsey started while he was then-Twitter’s CEO in 2019, when he chose Jay Graber to be Bluesky’s CEO. But Dorsey left his role at Twitter in November 2021, before the platform was incorporated as an independent company in February 2022. As a result of new management (then-CTO Parag Agrawal became Twitter’s CEO), Twitter decided to sever its agreement with Bluesky, meaning the platform was a completely separate entity which relied on funding rounds for money rather than Twitter’s purse. 

As for Jack Dorsey? He cut ties with Bluesky completely in May, after stepping down from his board role and deleting his account.

Bluesky is just another X alternative

While the platform resembles X’s interface, the way it operates is fundamentally different. That’s down to its decentralized nature (the platform is built on the AT Protocol — an open, decentralized network), which allows users more control over their data and content. How so? Because user data isn’t stored on centralized servers the way they are on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, for example.

“Our open social network returns choice to users, gives developers the freedom to build, and gives creators independence from platforms,” Bluesky’s Emily Liu told Digiday.

Bluesky is giving Threads and X a run for their money

If you believed the headlines, you might think that’s the case. But it’s not quite true. Sure, users might be leaving X, saying they’re heading over to Bluesky, but the platform still has a way to go to compete.

Liu told Digiday that Bluesky has already reached 19.8 million users, about a million new users per day over the past few days. 

“The majority of new users this week are coming from the U.S., U.K., and Canada, though our top three countries on the network are the U.S., Japan, and Brazil,” she said.

To compare, Meta’s Adam Mosseri posted that Threads had passed the 275 million user mark on Nov. 3, while the last recorded user figures for X was 570 million monthly active users.

“The single greatest hurdle to clear is the attraction and retention of influential users from across the cultural spectrum,” said Christopher Spong, associate director, social media at Collective Measures. “X, and Twitter before it, was a communications cornerstone where the perspectives of world leaders, athletes, celebrities, and journalists could be found. Drawing in these entities, or enough of them, will be essential to Bluesky’s survival.”

Decentralized platforms have no control over moderation

Some assume decentralization leads to chaos. But Bluesky offers robust moderation tools and user-driven content control, distinguishing it from platforms like Mastodon, which sits on another decentralized network called ActivityPub.

Josh Rosen, president of Hotspex Media highlighted that Bluesky is currently developing tools which aim to tackle the challenge of users creating multiple accounts to harass others, as well as reducing the number of spam accounts by disabling them within seconds of receiving a report. “As more users join, we’ll get to see the full effectiveness of these moderation attempts,” he added. 

Decentralization means no accountability

Some assume decentralization leads to less accountability, but Bluesky employs community-driven moderation and transparency through its open-source AT Protocol. Simply put, the platform’s approach focuses on automated filtering, manual admin actions, and community labeling, while its server operators can set rules on what content they will host.

But as Grace Harmon, analyst / writer of tech and AI briefings at eMarketer suggested, relying on volunteer moderators can be risky. 

“Since Bluesky is still establishing its public identity, this is a moment where faulty content filters or a proliferation of inappropriate content or spam posts might push Bluesky users away before they ever get hooked,” she said.

Bluesky is just for tech enthusiasts

While initially attracting a tech-savvy audience, Bluesky’s user-friendly interface and features like custom feeds and moderation tools make it accessible to a broader audience.

“We’ve heard from users that they’re receiving incredibly high levels of engagement from real people, and that most importantly, they’re having fun again,” said Liu.

It still lacks features compared to X

Given Bluesky is only about two years old, and X (including its Twitter years) is 18, it will naturally seem more basic, simply because Bluesky is in its infancy. But that doesn’t mean the platform isn’t already rolling out features to appeal to a wide userbase.

In fact, Bluesky’s team posted a product roadmap on its blog back in May, which said that over the next few months (without providing specific timelines or dates), they’ll be focusing on a lot of “quality of life” improvements and some long-requested features. These include:

• DMs (which has since been added)
• Video (version one will allow clips up to 90 seconds long)
• Improved custom feeds
• Improved anti-harassment features
• OAuth (a “log in” with Bluesky button)

The platform is achieving instant success without challenges

Although Bluesky has gained traction, it faces challenges like ensuring effective moderation and maintaining its unique community vibe as it grows.

“If the company can sustain this growth and appropriately keep up the features that are drawing users in, it could set itself up as the go-to alternative for people feeling alienated by X’s brand safety issues or frustrated by Threads’ upcoming ad launch,” said Harmon.

Bluesky is set to introduce advertising

Currently, the platform doesn’t take advertising. Back in February, CEO Jay Graber reaffirmed this position during an interview with Wired, when she said “There will always be free options, and we can’t enshittify the network with ads.” Simply put, they can’t bring on a bunch of ad revenue and subsequently lower the quality of the user experience by doing so, because it’s counterproductive.

Still, that doesn’t mean Bluesky won’t entertain ad revenue in the future. Platforms are known to publicly state they won’t start advertising initially. But after reaching a certain level of users, advertising becomes inevitable. Threads is a case in point, after the team initially said they’d focus on the user experience, it was reported earlier this month that ads are already expected in the early part of 2025 — albeit this date is already a push back from the H2 2024 timeline that was floated past some industry execs Digiday spoke to back in April.

But ads or no ads, some advertisers are already asking about Bluesky. Take Tinuiti, for example. Jack Johnston, the agency’s senior social innovation director said the conversation around Bluesky with their clients has become significantly more active since the election.

“With no formal advertising right now, most of the conversations are exploratory,” he said. “That way, if Bluesky starts asking for ad dollars in the future, they already understand the difference between ads on Bluesky, Threads and X and what that future looks like.”

Bluesky is the next big platform success story

Sure, it’s had a lot of hype and headlines since the election, but that should be taken with a pinch of salt. Is it good that Bluesky’s userbase is growing? Course. Does that automatically mean the platform is here to stay? Not necessarily. Think Clubhouse, Post., Pebble (formerly T2) — all these platforms set out to be the next big thing, but for one reason or another, none of them survived. 

All that is to say, it’s going to take a lot more than a few weeks of user growth to prove Bluesky is here to stay.