Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 235 posts

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

#41

Post by PaulHoule »

semiquaver wrote: post #34

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 mad…

A lot of people on Bluesky are pretty normal and if you make a point to block on the first bit of political NPC behavior you can find people that are interested in cat pictures and software and such.

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

#42

Post by singpolyma3 »

echelon wrote: post #38
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.

Then follow people producing such content?

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

#43

Post by brooke2k »

ecshafer wrote: post #30

Bluesky and Threads both have a fundamental issue in that their entire pitch is "We are like Twitter, but we are not run by Elon Musk, a Republican." Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones that were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place. When you whole pitch has zero appeal to 95% of people, its dead.

calling elon musk "a Republican" is such a wild understatement

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

#44

Post by singpolyma3 »

tptacek wrote: post #22
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…

The distinction is that Mastodon doesn't have to grow, and Bluesky does. There's an extent to which Bluesky is viable because its venture-funded owner pays for the infrastructure it operates on (Mastodon communities generally have to stand on their own two feet). If there's no path for Bluesky to grow into a viable business on its current financial runway, the funding for the infrastructure will end.

We already have others running infrastructure as well so if bsky goes away the platform can survive

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

#45

Post by singpolyma3 »

dbbk wrote: post #6

If Meta had put Threads on the AT protocol instead of ActivityPub, things could have been so different... maybe there's still time. The engineering philosophy for AT / Bluesky is incredible, being able to develop your own timeline algorithms, distributed moderation agencies, etc. But whenever I give Bluesky a try unfortunately I just can't find people talking about my interests. This seems like a scale problem, which…

Anything on AP or AT can bridge both ways anyway

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

#46

Post by nickthegreek »

echelon wrote: post #38
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.

my tiktok fyp is just that.

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

#47

Post by bigstrat2003 »

ecshafer wrote: post #30

Bluesky and Threads both have a fundamental issue in that their entire pitch is "We are like Twitter, but we are not run by Elon Musk, a Republican." Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones that were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place. When you whole pitch has zero appeal to 95% of people, its dead.

Yeah, I agree. It's the inverse of the problem Scott Alexander has observed in the past: when you make an alternative platform based on the premise of "we won't ban people based on having unpopular views", you wind up with a user base of 10 principled free speech activists, and a million people with truly awful views. It turns your platform into an awful place that nobody wants to associate with, even if they agree that it's bad to ban people for having unpopular views.

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

#48

Post by PaulHoule »

ecshafer wrote: post #30

Bluesky and Threads both have a fundamental issue in that their entire pitch is "We are like Twitter, but we are not run by Elon Musk, a Republican." Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones that were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place. When you whole pitch has zero appeal to 95% of people, its dead.

Not sure what to say about Threads. I mean, if you have an Instagram account they’ll try to give you a Threads account and photos I post to Insta automatically go to Threads so I am probably in the top 5% of Threads posters though I hardly ever log in. I am happy if people see my photos on Insta or Threads or LinkedIn or Nextdoor or wherever.

Thread’s notifications are just plain weird like it is usually clickbait where you can’t tell if they love Trump or hate Trump and if the one sexy cosplayer/alt fashion model I follow because I know her in IRL did something provocative with her friend who has tattoos from head to toe, Threads thinks this is front page news.

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

#49

Post by bluemoonx »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #47
ecshafer wrote: post #30

Bluesky and Threads both have a fundamental issue in that their entire pitch is "We are like Twitter, but we are not run by Elon Musk, a Republican." Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones that were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place. When you whole pitch has zero appeal to 95% of people, its dead.

Yeah, I agree. It's the inverse of the problem Scott Alexander has observed in the past: when you make an alternative platform based on the premise of "we won't ban people based on having unpopular views", you wind up with a user base of 10 principled free speech activists, and a million people with truly awful views. It turns your platform into an awful place that nobody wants to associate with, even if they agree t…

Sounds fun, sign me up. I want the bad. Moderation is somehow worse. I’m a big boy I can block the spammers myself

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

#50

Post by PaulHoule »

mschuster91 wrote: post #33
speak_plainly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, g…

Two-sided networks are really something…. It’s almost impossible to kill a social network!
Post reply on HN