Bluesky isn’t the ‘new Twitter,’ but its resemblance to the old one is drawing millions of new users

FILE PHOTO (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Casey Fiesler, University of Colorado Boulder

What would you say at Twitter’s funeral?

That’s the question my collaborators and I asked over 1,000 people on social media as part of a broader research project on Twitter migration. Responses ranged from the profane to the poetic, but one common theme was that despite its significant flaws, Twitter at its best was truly great … until it wasn’t.

“The world is a better place for it having existed, and a better place now that it’s gone.”

“It takes so little to destroy so much.”

“I will miss it for what it could be in its best moments, but I will be happy that we can finally move on to healthier spaces.”

For many, it was time to leave in the hopes of finding greener pastures.

Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now branded as X, in October 2022, there have been reports of mass migration from the platform, and much ink was spilled – including some by me, a researcher who studies online communities – speculating where those users might land.

The decentralized social network Mastodon attracted a lot of early attention, gaining a significant influx of users in the months following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. In July 2023, Meta’s microblogging platform Threads gained 30 million users in its first day. Other Twitter alternatives appeared in 2023, some of which have chugged along with relatively small user bases, while others have already shut down. But these days, all the buzz seems to be about Bluesky.

Looking for the familiar

Bluesky was created in 2019 as a research project within Twitter led by then-CEO Jack Dorsey. It eventually severed ties with Twitter and became an independent company following Musk’s acquisition. The goal with Bluesky was to build a decentralized standard for social media that Twitter could eventually adopt. In that way, Bluesky is comparable to Mastodon in that they both allow for the creation of different servers that interact, and users can move their data and network between servers.

But what does all this mean for your experience on Bluesky? If you are confused by – or just don’t care about – centralized versus decentralized social media, Bluesky won’t seem very different. It looks and feels a lot like Twitter. Nearly all of Bluesky currently operates from a single server, bsky.social, which means that you don’t have to choose a server when you sign up and your experience is contained there. Though Bluesky provides the option for users to host their own server and therefore store and control their own data, most users will experience what they’re accustomed to on traditional, centralized social media.

My previous research on platform migration revealed how leaving a platform requires both a compelling reason and an immediate viable alternative. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was a compelling reason for many users, and there have been a number of policy, design and cultural changes since that have compelled even more users to jump ship.

As for an immediate alternative in November 2022, Mastodon had a significant head start because Bluesky hadn’t launched, and when it did in February 2023 it remained invitation-only for about a year. Threads didn’t launch until July 2023. Though Mastodon has a very dedicated user base, particularly among people who share a commitment to decentralization and user autonomy, there are a number of factors that have limited widespread adoption.

My colleagues and I found that even among those on Mastodon, knowing how to find and join a specific server was the biggest challenge, and this has been enough of a barrier to keep many people off the social network entirely. Research on the migration of “Academic Twitter,” a broad community of academics connected on Twitter, also revealed that the decentralized structure of Mastodon created challenges for community building and sustained user engagement.

Bluesky’s moment

Meanwhile, the U.S. election in November seems to have been the tipping point as a compelling reason to leave for many X users, along with terms of service changes regarding AI training. And it seems that at this moment there are other different “immediate viable alternatives.”

Bluesky in particular saw huge growth in November, topping 20 million users, and at the time of this writing is still gaining several users per second.

Though media and popular attention has been focused on Bluesky, Threads, which has nearly 300 million users, saw even more new sign-ups in November than Bluesky’s entire user base. Nevertheless, even Meta seems to be focused on Bluesky’s surge. It has scrambled to incorporate features into Threads that are selling points of Bluesky, such as customizable feeds.

Perhaps Bluesky’s growth is particularly impressive – and therefore threatening to Meta – because it occurred essentially by word of mouth. In contrast, Threads has an absolutely enormous advertising platform: Instagram. Not only can Threads users simply use their existing Instagram accounts, but Meta has also started pushing Threads posts to Instagram.

So when considering these three major Twitter alternatives – Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads – Bluesky’s moment actually makes a lot of sense to me. It feels less corporate than Meta’s Threads, and so it represents an alternative to Big Tech platforms controlled by billionaires. It also appeals to people who believe in the vision of decentralized social media or who want the option to control their data.

But at the same time, the user experience is nearly identical to familiar, traditional social media, and it addresses some of the challenges identified with Mastodon, such as the learning curve for choosing a server. A surge in creation and use of starter packs on Bluesky – curated lists of people to follow – have also accelerated the creation of community and social networks. And the sudden buzz around the platform all at once has created momentum for entire former Twitter communities, such as Academic Twitter, to partially reconstitute themselves.

No one site to rule them all

Despite my optimism for the continued growth of Bluesky, I don’t think there will ever be a “new Twitter.” Social media fragmentation is here to stay, and many people are very happy on Threads or Mastodon or even smaller alternatives capitalizing on the latest X exodus. And X itself has over 600 million active monthly users.

These platforms all provide something different, with different communities and priorities, and none will be the best option for everyone. Moreover, as Bluesky continues to grow, it will inevitably face many of the same problems that Twitter did even when the platform was perceived as being at its greatest.

But for those who were hoping to “move on to healthier spaces” after attending Twitter’s funeral, there are multiple doors open for them.

Casey Fiesler, Associate Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.