Despite all of the chaos wrought by Elon Musk and his changes to Twitter and its policies, platform usage hasn’t really declined. True enough, while Twitter has reinstated a slew of previously banned accounts, filled with probably every kind of degenerate person imaginable, it also softened its rules around content removals, potentially putting more people at risk of abuse. In short, Twitter has made itself blatantly more degenerate, while still having the audacity to report getting ‘record levels’ of engagement.

Feeding Delusion

While we can talk about all of the controversy and muddy topics that currently circulate in the app, that might take us an entire decade to complete. Here’s the summarized version – Twitter manages to retain its activity simply because no other viable alternative really exists for its mauled users to transfer, until now.

The tide could be changing, and it’s because of the man whom Musk eventually replaced. Jack Dorsey’s growing ‘Bluesky’ platform, which he launched while he was still in charge of Twitter back then, is seeing some strong traction. Dorsey built Bluesky around the concept of decentralization, hoping that it’ll become a better version of Twitter, minus everything that had originally stymied his visions for Twitter in the past. Here are Bluesky’s main aims, according to Dorsey:

  • To facilitate enhanced efforts to address abuse and misleading information, without overburdening staff.

  • To enable users and the broader community to have more input into platform algorithms.

  • To improve conversational health by giving people more input into platform rules.

Based on how similar projects have gone, Bluesky seemed like just another pipe dream – a utopian vision of how a social platform could rely on the power of the collective. However, oftentimes, the reality is the complete opposite, with apps based on this notion being completely unusable for regular people who have no background in computer science. Despite this, Bluesky seems to be different. Already, it’s going against the norm by being accessible to both tech-savvy and non-savvy users. It’s said that Bluesky is even now attracting a couple of big names.

The migration of influential users is significant and has already led to big changes in the Social Media landscape in the past. Vine dies because Twitter basically denied more monetization for creators, forcing them to switch to YouTube and Instagram. The same could now happen to Twitter. When Bluesky launched back in 2021, Twitter invested $13 million into what would eventually become its own identity. Dorsey has continued to fund Bluesky since October, when it effectively separated from Twitter. Dorsey also rolled over his shares of Twitter into Bluesky after Musk took over. Here’s the only important thing to keep in mind – Bluesky is separate from Twitter.

Bluesky is currently invite-only, which significantly restricts mass adoption, but it is growing fast. Based on data.ai stats, Bluesky Social is currently the 8th most-downloaded Social Media app. Bluesky’s hype has already superseded Mastodon, another big Twitter alternative, further solidifying Bluesky’s capacity to offer some communities a better experience than the current mess that’s Twitter’s Feed.

Bluesky also offers a range of content control options which could lessen the impact of an expanded user base, as a broader range of people set up profiles in the app. To be clear, Bluesky still has many challenges to overcome, which only increase as more and more users come aboard. Scaling will prove to be a bit tricky, but signs so far point to Bluesky being a potentially legit Twitter alternative that might even end up succeeding the old app.

The Wrap

What everybody’s probably looking forward to right now is how Musk will respond. – records depict him as having something similar to a ‘Zuckerberg Complex’, a.k.a. attacking anything perceived as a threat; projects he’s had prior associations with are at a higher risk. Musk will no doubt look to try and punish Bluesky the more rep it gains, though, at that stage, it may already be too late. Besides, unhappy Twitter users might support the underdog if Twitter tries to bully it into submission. A big shift is on the way; anything can happen.

Sources

https://bit.ly/3NnyOKZ