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Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

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Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#31

Post by Lerc »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #19
nxm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter's not doing too bad: 550 and 600 million monthly active users according to platform disclosures and industry estimates So maybe the trick is to not just cater to left on your platform.

80% are bots, 10% trolls, and 5% foreign agents. I’ll take Bluesky over that every day.

Why would bots be limited to twitter? Wouldn't Bluesky be just as susceptiblle.

I stopped using Bluesky because I was seeing too many people celebrating the misfortune of others. I didn't have that on twitter, I know people were on the platform behaving like that, but it didn't seem to be what was delivered to me.

I was never a big user of either though. I suspect my lifetime sum of Tweets and Blurts would be under 50.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#32

Post by amatecha »

omoikane wrote: post #15

Maybe Bluesky is not quite the Twitter rival it set out to be, but it's got a better shot than Mastodon, according to the user count graphs here: https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://mastodon-analytics.com/ Bluesky has a higher total user count. I think the number of active users might be higher too, but I am not sure what's mastodon's definition of an active user for the second link above. Anecdotally, Bluesky feels…

Mastodon isn't trying to compete anyway, it's not a Product(tm) driven by desire for profits, so the people who use it don't care if it "wins" or becomes more popular than whatever other platform. We're all just hanging out socializing and stuff, sharing neat things and discussing things like communities do. It's not easy to accurately estimate active Mastodon/Fediverse users, but then again, I'm not sure anyone really cares either way? lol

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#33

Post by mschuster91 »

speak_plainly wrote: post #7
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does success look like? I get what I want from Twitter/X through a pull through cache. I get to read the folks I follow on Bluesky. Works for me? My feed as a utility is working as expected. I keep what I want to read, and mute and block that which I do not. I remain in control of my data and experience of the firehose. If someone I'd like to see on Bluesky is not yet there, I ask them to be. If there is data on…

I think there are two things going on. After launch, there was an exuberant group of users who believed the purpose or aim of Bluesky was to be a recreation of Twitter in terms of user base and impact. They were lead on by the icon a bit and lots of rhetoric. And I think many believed it would destroy X. By their standards, Bluesky is an epic failure. But by the aims of the company itself, moving social media from pr…

> And I think many believed it would destroy X.

Given what Musk did back at the time - member him carrying a sink? Randomly unplugging servers? - it was not that much of a stretch to assume the BS would eventually catch up with him and Twitter would enter the FO phase of FAFO.

Unfortunately, for unfathomable reasons Twitter is still alive somehow, despite being a cesspit of Russian propaganda, far-right propaganda, general trolls and a ton of porn sellers... I frankly assume the porn is what keeps a lot of people on there instead of Truth Social or one of the countless other attempts.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#34

Post by semiquaver »

As an anecdote, I switched a year or two ago along with most everyone I followed on X.

It’s nothing like the vibe on old Twitter. I hate to say it, but it’s just too ideologically siloed. I’m quite left of center, but everyone on bluesky seems to be a caricature; the blue-haired loonies the right memes about. People there are seriously intolerant of anything other than their perceived orthodoxy. I don’t know what made it this way but it’s simply not usable purely by virtue of who’s there.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#35

Post by PaulHoule »

raincole wrote: post #28

Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Hands down. I can't imagine anyone enjoying it unless they're 1) super into the US politics/domestic issues AND 2) politically aligned with the main user base of Bluesky. The funniest part is that there is a better algorithm. It's right here: https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/feed/for-... But somehow the devs of Bluesky never…

If you are careful about who you follow and you click on “less like this” whenever you see hysterical stuff about politics the “discover” feed is pretty good, in fact back when I was concerned about this I found it has 30% as much hysterical stuff about politics as my “following” feed.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#37

Post by PaulHoule »

omoikane wrote: post #15

Maybe Bluesky is not quite the Twitter rival it set out to be, but it's got a better shot than Mastodon, according to the user count graphs here: https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://mastodon-analytics.com/ Bluesky has a higher total user count. I think the number of active users might be higher too, but I am not sure what's mastodon's definition of an active user for the second link above. Anecdotally, Bluesky feels…

I am on several socials, personally I like the crowd on Mastodon the best but they all have their charms. I mean friends, furs, family, people I take street photos of, local radio personalities and people who look up to my character can be found in many places.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#38

Post by echelon »

raincole wrote: post #28

Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Hands down. I can't imagine anyone enjoying it unless they're 1) super into the US politics/domestic issues AND 2) politically aligned with the main user base of Bluesky. The funniest part is that there is a better algorithm. It's right here: https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/feed/for-... But somehow the devs of Bluesky never…

I don't want to see politics, rage bait, sexism, hate, performative superiority, whining, or negativity.

Who invented all of these algorithms? I want none of this.

I want good news, awesome things, uplifting stories, cool hacks. That's it. That's literally it.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#39

Post by anon7000 »

raincole wrote: post #28

Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Hands down. I can't imagine anyone enjoying it unless they're 1) super into the US politics/domestic issues AND 2) politically aligned with the main user base of Bluesky. The funniest part is that there is a better algorithm. It's right here: https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/feed/for-... But somehow the devs of Bluesky never…

The fact that Bluesky has first class support for me to choose my own feed algorithm is proof it’s NOTHING like truth social.

Re: Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app

#40

Post by eterm »

I wanted to like bluesky, I really tried, but when 90% of it ( after filtering out politics ) is people talking about the platform itself, it's off-putting.

I don't want to hear about atproto, or "the atmosophere", I want to hear about actually interesting things.

It'd be like if 90% of twitter was talking about twitter the platform, it's an odd thing to focus on.

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