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Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

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Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#171

Post by tptacek »

raincole wrote: post #163
tptacek wrote: post #111

I don't understand how Bluesky is going to continue to exist past 2026, based on the sharply declining usage, their headcount, and the amount of funding they've taken. It has apparent value propositions past the social network, but none of those use cases are visibly taking off and none of them appear to be monetizable. The social network itself is what will be evaluated when they go out for more funding. And I don't…

> I don't understand how Bluesky is going going to continue to exist past 2026, based on the sharply declining usage, their headcount, and the amount of funding they've taken. Are you an insider? Where are the numbers? how_long_can_bluesky_exists = f(usage, headcount, funding) Three parameters and you supplied zero of them. It does sound like you just randomly picked a number 2026 and proceeded to rant on how little…

You can just Google these things. Nate Silver posted (grim looking) usage numbers --- followers and posters --- just a couple weeks ago. They very publicly raised a $15MM (priced) A round a year ago, after raising what I understood to be a comparable amount of seed funding. There was talk early this year of them raising again at a $700MM valuation, but I don't see a subsequent announcement that that happened.

You can generally take a headcount number and assign a fully loaded cost to it (say, $200k, conservatively) and just math it out. And of course that analysis assumes their infra expenditures round to zero.

So no, I'm not just making stuff up. I could be wrong! I feel like I was open about that.

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#172

Post by nomdep »

firefax wrote: post #151

Most of my hard science contacts (physics, biology etc) from my days in student government have moved to Bluesky. Newer academics seem to be starting out there and skipping Twitter entirely. If you have heard of Metcalfe's Law, you'll understand why this is not good for Twitter long term. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

So Bluesky for academia and X for tech and everyone else. I don’t think X is in trouble.

Scientist tend to form their own closed communities anyway.

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#173

Post by tptacek »

shrinks99 wrote: post #148
tptacek wrote: post #111

I don't understand how Bluesky is going to continue to exist past 2026, based on the sharply declining usage, their headcount, and the amount of funding they've taken. It has apparent value propositions past the social network, but none of those use cases are visibly taking off and none of them appear to be monetizable. The social network itself is what will be evaluated when they go out for more funding. And I don't…

Sharply declining usage? I don't see the stats to back that up on https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats Usage has absolutely declined from peak switching periods where inevitibly some users won't stick around, but that's to be expected. Most stats seem to be leveling off (which isn't exactly stable growth either so the rest of your points stand).

Yeah, I think what you needed to do here is zoom out. That's a sharply declining chart.

I understand that as a Bluesky user the peak and dropoff doesn't hurt the experience. But investors are going to put money in with the expectation of a return and what they're going to look at are the derivatives of the adoption curve: how quickly is it gaining users, and is adoption accelerating?

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#174

Post by nomdep »

input_sh wrote: post #9
hdlothia wrote: post #6

It would be nice if scientists started being just scientists again instead of activists. Hopefully being cloistered on bluesky will bring the old vibes back

Scientists are allowed to have opinions outside of their work and share them.

Unless is a opinion not shared by their colleagues

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#175

Post by mbStavola »

fishgoesblub wrote: post #4

If only Bluesky could be as decentralised as the Fediverse [0] Trading one corporate overlord for another is not the smartest play. [0] https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/

I wonder why the Fediverse metrics don't count Threads, the single largest AP instance by several orders of magnitude?

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#176

Post by Manuel_D »

shrinks99 wrote: post #148
tptacek wrote: post #111

I don't understand how Bluesky is going to continue to exist past 2026, based on the sharply declining usage, their headcount, and the amount of funding they've taken. It has apparent value propositions past the social network, but none of those use cases are visibly taking off and none of them appear to be monetizable. The social network itself is what will be evaluated when they go out for more funding. And I don't…

Sharply declining usage? I don't see the stats to back that up on https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats Usage has absolutely declined from peak switching periods where inevitibly some users won't stick around, but that's to be expected. Most stats seem to be leveling off (which isn't exactly stable growth either so the rest of your points stand).

https://imgur.com/a/GLkSLkY

It looks like Bluesky is going to be shedding active for the near future, probably settling around a million users active per day.

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#177

Post by techblueberry »

glitchc wrote: post #114
techblueberry wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a second, if you’re saying that this is not a feature of good activism, are you implying you are more convinced by activists who practice dogma over objective thinking? What is a scientist to do when they discover a vaccine or cure for something; say fuck it who cares if we change behavior? Are you saying a good vaccine advocate is someone who ignores the underlying science and acts dogmatically? It just feels l…

I have yet to observe an activist practice objective thinking. That was the root of the argument. Activists sometimes do back the correct argument, but not because they are practising scientific reasoning. Most activists are swayed by rhetoric, a good story. That's an emotional response, not a logical one. To answer your second point, science has a process for disseminating new findings. It's not perfect, but it work…

Maybe the problem is with our funding model. Necessarily the whole grant system is based on being able to argue a narrative as to why your scientific inquiry deserves money. Combine that with a system that includes incentives towards or away from social values, and scientists are necessarily activists.

And then that’s just to get money in your specific direction, getting money in your general direction requires more broad activism.

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#178

Post by jghn »

packetlost wrote: post #162
jghn wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've found is that most of the people I really want to follow are exclusively on bsky. BUT most of the people I'd prefer to casually follow either exclusively or mostly only posts on Twitter. And the 2nd group is a much larger pool than the first group. I really dislike Mastodon so gave that up a while back. I know there are a few people I'd like to follow who only post there, but such is life.

I've found Bluesky does a really bad job at not showing me stuff I don't want to see. Furry p*rn on the "cute internet cats" feed? Yup. Heaps and heaps of political rage bait on the main discover feed? Yup. I wanted to like BlueSky, but it's such a bizarre echo chamber of people who left Twitter for ideological reasons that it basically filters for people that I actively don't want to engage with. Those types of peop…

I never see that but on both sites I only ever look at the feed that only includes people I follow. I don’t understand why anyone would use a feed that includes other co the t

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#179

Post by bell-cot »

roughly wrote: post #142
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see. So you want to use "science" to push particular political remedies to your pet issues.

Oh I mean I don’t care if the teacher is for or against school shootings, I just find it interesting to have subject matter experts share their knowledge and give their opinions on things that impact their field. Some people just don’t take it well when those opinions don’t line up with their own on contentious topics.

How is it "interesting" for an elementary school teacher to be against school shootings? I'd bet I can find some carpenters who are against smashing thumbs with hammers, but why bother?

Are you calling it "Activism" when someone shares the opinion of 99.9% of the population, and spends 0 time advocating for that opinion?

Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place

#180

Post by ChrisArchitect »

Heard this all year, including a number of stories recently.

Related:

Bluesky now platform of choice for science community

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039397

Scientists No Longer Find X Professionally Useful, and Have Switched to Bluesky

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44978815

Science research gets more engagement on Bluesky than X, study finds

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45092672

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