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A horizon beyond the white X: what is Bluesky?

6/10/2023

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Ironically, the infamous micro-blogging platform X launched its biggest competitor itself ages ago. Unlike Mastodon, Bluesky is still a closed network that requires an invite code.

Since the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk in October 2022, the search for an alternative to the micro-blogging service has picked up speed. There are many reasons for this, but neither Mastodon nor Threads have benefited sustainably from the downfall of X so far. Currently, Bluesky is the hottest candidate, but it’s only just passed one million accounts.

Mastodon and Threads haven’t been able to push out X

Immediately after the acquisition, Mastodon was considered the biggest beneficiary of Twitter’s takeover in late 2022. The mammoth was able to significantly increase its user numbers, but still remained far behind Twitter. With its 4.2 update, the decentralised network gained more features and became searchable, but new accounts were created primarily in response to other changes at Twitter.

In the summer, Meta’s Instagram spinoff Threads amassed significantly more users in a short period of time than Mastodon had in the months prior. However, it remained a U.S. phenomenon due to local restrictions imposed by Meta.

Some of my colleagues have found their way to Bluesky, but our article previews haven’t yet.
Source: Jan Johannsen

Bluesky was bobbing around in the background the whole time, but was only able to really take off in German-speaking countries at the beginning of October 2023. There are two reasons for this: invite codes are now more widely available and Elon Musk was accused of strengthening AFD positions in the German state election campaign.

From Twitter of the future to a rival for X

Bluesky, or the idea behind it, has existed since 2019. Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey announced an initiative to structure the micro-blogging service in a more decentralised way in the future. This would follow the ActivityPub protocol, on which Mastodon is based. At Bluesky, however, a separate technological basis was created with the AT protocol. Nevertheless, it’s still fundamentally intended to be decentralised. Unlike Mastodon, however, not every person should necessarily be able to set up an account, rather only organisations or companies. Twitter funds work on Bluesky, or a non-profit corporation that handles the protocol.

After Musk’s Twitter acquisition, the use of the AT protocol became more concrete. Bluesky became a company offering an app based on the protocol and raised investor money.

Bluesky sorts posts across different feeds.
Source: Jan Johannsen

So far, new Bluesky accounts can only be created with an invite code. This makes it possible to test the service during operation without having to keep the hardware ready for millions of users. In September 2023, Bluesky exceeded the million mark. Mastodon already had more than ten million accounts, and Threads, according to its own information, already broke the 100 million mark in July.

Bluesky is still starting out

Work on Bluesky isn’t finished yet. Compared to X, Bluesky is still missing a few things, although Twitter didn’t necessarily have them in its first year either:

Direct messages
Clickable hashtags
Video posts
Livestreams
GIF posts

In addition, there are no ads on Bluesky yet and blocked accounts aren’t visible under your posts at all. Bluesky doesn’t use blue check marks for verification, which you can buy from X now. Instead, you can confirm your account with access to a domain. It will then show up as the handle of your account.

The current Bluesky menu.
Source: Jan Johannsen

There’s even already a Tweetdeck clone for Bluesky, deck.blue. The original has migrated behind the Twitter Blue paywall at X. Likewise, people have already programmed helpful tools that find accounts followed on X on Bluesky.

Bluesky could cause X lasting problems

Things aren’t looking good for X financially. The company is currently valued at 8 billion US dollars (article in German). A drastic loss in value compared to the 44 billion paid by Elon Musk. And even less than the current company debt, currently at 13 billion US dollars.

A large-scale exodus of accounts, on the other hand, hasn’t yet come to rear its head. While Mastodon hasn’t really taken off after a year and Threads is mostly just an Instagram extension, Bluesky could sustainably sway users from Twitter.

At present, development is still slow. But eventually, an invite code will no longer be necessary. And Bluesky should also improve its functionality in due time. Both will increase the relevance of the network and thus its attractiveness, perhaps becoming even more decentralised with the AT protocol. Still, I doubt that further development will only be rosy. For now, though, I’ve found a network in Bluesky that allows me to stop using X. I’m still missing one or two football accounts, though.

Header image: Jan Johannsen

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Jan Johannsen

Senior Editor

Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.de

As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.

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