BlueSky seems to have started blowing up in popularity due to the recent changes in Twitter. A lot has changed since the last time I talked about BlueSky.
One interesting thing that's important but nobody thinks about when it comes to social networks is the community and culture around the platform. And I think that BlueSky is finally starting to gain it's identity. And the identity that BlueSky has given itself is similar to Tumblr before the 2018 porn ban.
One of the biggest advantages of BlueSky is the amount of curation that you can do. You can not only create custom algorithms, but you can also follow block lists and moderation lists that automatically add labels to people. Although Tumblr doesn't have most of these tools, one of the main positives of the site is just how much curation you can do.
But the biggest thing is the userbase. Right now, the BlueSky userbase can be composed into 3 large groups:
- Regular people microblogging
- Artists
- Horny people in their upper 20's
Basically, BlueSky is full of nerds. And this would make sense, as most of the people invited when the platform was invite only were nerds. Plus, the people who are affected by recent Twitter changes (allowing scraping for AI) are artists, so it makes sense they would move. The other people don't have a reason to move, unless their friends are moving.
The average BlueSky user is also much more likely to be left leaning (and right leaning users are usually filtered out by moderation lists). This isn't a bad thing, but is comparable to Tumblr (which is like the queerest social networking service). There seems to be a pushback between celebrities and brands using BlueSky (despite those being the users who will make the most users migrate), as well as an effort to keep "toxic" people entirely off the platform.
As Rose from the BlueSky team points out, about 30% of the users on BlueSky seem to be actively making posts. And my guess for this is that BlueSky benefits the posters more than the readers. People who simply observe Twitter have no reason to leave, as most of the people there are going to stay there. The only people who really benefit from BlueSky are people with many connections who are moving, artists, and people who want to see untagged naked pictures from men in their 30s.