Live data from Hacker News

Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

theverge.com

11–20 of 185 posts

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#12

[flagged]

> How do I verify the data? Trust me bro?

The lede is literally "Bluesky gained more than 700,000 new users in the last week and now has more than 14.5 million users total, Bluesky COO Rose Wang confirmed to The Verge."

Companies intentionally lying about their data is a good way for them to get sued.

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#13
post #9

How does it compare to threads?

Threads has become worse over time due to a series of anti-user policy decisions (no news/politics) and a very weird Discover algorithm that strongly incentivizes clickbait (and said feed is the default on the app and cannot be changed)

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#14
It's beyond words how much Elon Musk has wrecked Twitter. But, I am not ready join another echo chamber that mirrors the same flaws from the other side of the spectrum. My initial impression of BlueSky is just that.

Twitter's greatest flaw—no, I won’t call it "X"—is its obsession with engagement to promote tweets. This creates the worst feed you can think of:

- People ask the dumbest questions, just to bait responses.

- Someone makes a reasonable point, and along comes the dumbest reply. Why? So others can pile on, calling them out, driving up engagement.

- External links are buried. Good articles? Forget it. They’ve vanished from my feed.

- The most toxic people are constantly pushed to my feed. And it's a losing battle to block them all. Keeping my feed politics-free is borderline impossible.

- The fact that you can buy a subscription and ensure that your tweets get highlighted more is absurd. It has made it really easy to get the worst accounts in your feed.

It’s exhausting. I am just there because I think it is still a good marketing channel. But I am not sure anymore if the pros outweigh the cons.

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#15
post #7

[flagged]

I wonder if social networks continue to bifurcate? Truth Social, Gab and X on the right and Mastadon, BlueSky on the left and Threads somewhere in between focused on celebrities? This article suggests that there is a bifurcation happening: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/29/elon-mu...

They will remain bifurcated so long as some platforms censor political dissent while others do not.

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#16
Whenever I see an article about this or that platform gaining a million users I always think of the Eternal September.

I'd like to see a platform where after a certain number of people join, a new server is automatically created and new users are redirected there, similar to how MMO servers worked.

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#18
post #2

I can attest that BlueSky is really nice right now. Feels less combative than Twitter. I started to use it 25 days ago and got 400 or so follows pretty quickly. I am here: https://bsky.app/profile/benhouston3d.bsky.social I used this tool to find accounts that match on both platforms: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sky-follower-bridge...

Following you, and hope to finally spend more time on the butterfly app instead of the bird app since it seems enough people are moving over there. I managed to primarily use Mastadon for a few months at one point but got sucked back into TWT.

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#19

[flagged]

> How do I verify the data? Trust me bro? The lede is literally "Bluesky gained more than 700,000 new users in the last week and now has more than 14.5 million users total, Bluesky COO Rose Wang confirmed to The Verge." Companies intentionally lying about their data is a good way for them to get sued.

How exactly would they get sued for this?

Re: Bluesky adds 700k new users in a week

#20
I've seen this played out many times and won't fall into the "next big social media site" trap anymore. If anything, I've noticed people are moving away from public social media and towards more private sites (only sharing photos and stuff with family members and close friends). The days of "let's put it out there for the entire world to see" are over.
Post reply on HN