Bluesky quickly sold out of the T-shirt its CEO wore to troll Mark Zuckerberg

Post by hooloovoo_zoo » Fri, Mar 14, 2025, 8:34 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #36

rKarpinski wrote: post #11

> Zuckerberg has drawn comparisons between himself and the Roman dictator Julius Caesar Thought it was Caesar Augustus? IIRC Zuckerberg has even claimed that his hairstyle is inspired by him.

yea it's augustus, but Zuck's "Zuck or Nothing" playing off of "Aut Caesar aut nihil" isn't even referring to a particular Caesar, but it's use as the title Emperor , and attributable to Cesare Borgia. I think Zuck's shirt is a good joke on everyone trying to displace Facebook from the market. BlueSky wants to be the next Facebook/Twitter, so IMO by not getting the joke the Bluesky shirt is a self-own.

Post by jazzyjackson » Fri, Mar 14, 2025, 8:36 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #46

jazzyjackson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

selling out is a marketing piece. If they wanted to raise money for development of AT Proto they could raise more by taking backorders and shipping when available. Selling a limited edition in order to sell out is because it's cheaper to get people to write about you than it is to buy ad placement.

I mean, not every company wants to turn into a t-shirt shop permanently.

Post by pfraze » Fri, Mar 14, 2025, 8:41 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #41

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just crossed 33M users. Maybe your microcosm? https://blueskyusercount.com/

Active monthly is probably a tenth of that. I've made an account 2 or 3 times over the years but never find much to make me stay, I think I delete my accounts tho so I don't know if I'm in that stat.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 14, 2025, 8:47 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #38

Perhaps merch is the path to successful monetisation of software products? The Something Awful forums had a $9.95 registration fee. I'm sure markup on those $40 shirts is more than that. Some game developers also embraced this business model: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/745810196/deep-rock-gal... Personally I would not spend this much on a plastic mug, but it seems there were enough takers to fund continued…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 14, 2025, 8:49 PM UTC

drpossum wrote: post #44

jredwards wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect is the enemy of good. BlueSky is an iterative improvement on the other viable platforms.

No, the iterative improvement is to go back to letting communities develop the services and interactions they need rather than it being dictated to us by a monoplatform. It was like that with Twitter and now happening again with Bluesky. If you don't see how this ends you're not paying attention. If you support this you 're the problem.