Bluesky Opens Up to the Public: How It Could Change the Social Media Landscape

 

Many are calling it Twitter 2.0, as it closely resembles the platform from before Musk took over. However, there’s one big difference: it’s decentralized. What that means is that instead of the company storing users’ data on their own servers, independent servers store user data, giving users more control over their overall feed. Instead of an all-encompassing algorithm, users can create their own servers and switch without losing their data, according to Bluesky’s CEO, Jay Graber.

 

However, decentralized social platforms already exist, with the most popular one being Mastodon, due to its focus on discussing various topics. While popular with over 8.7 million users by October 2023, it isn’t nearly as easy to use because of how tech-heavy it is, with multiple servers, making it hard to navigate. Much like Mastodon, Bluesky offers multiple different servers, but switching from one to the other is seamless, and the overall interface is very reminiscent of Twitter’s old interface.

 

 

After opening the platform to the public, Bluesky announced users could follow the Super Bowl game without hearing about Taylor Swift, which accelerated its overall growth by 1.6 million new users, bringing Bluesky's total user list to 4.8 million users. Then there’s Threads, Meta’s text-based offering, which is arguably the largest of the alternatives currently out there. But while it has the largest user base thanks to how easy it is to move your account from Instagram to Threads, it hasn’t captured the discussion aspect that X (previously Twitter) is known for.

 

What Bluesky aims to do differently is bridge the gap between the decentralized network and focus on the discussion aspect of Mastadon while delivering a user-friendly experience that Threads offers. While Mastadon, Threads, and various other platforms seek to replace X, they have yet to succeed for a multitude of reasons. With Bluesky eliminating the invite-only aspect of the platform and focusing on the lacking factors in other platforms, it may just have the potential to be a legitimate replacement for X.