How Far Can Enthusiasm Carry BlueSky Before Ads Become Inevitable?

BlueSky’s growth has been impressive, but does the up-and-coming platform need to pivot already to become a serious challenger to its (far) bigger rivals?

At first glance, BlueSky, the latest social platform touted as ‘the one to dethrone X’, looks to be a carbon-copy of the old Twitter platform. Co-founded by Jack Dorsey (Twitter’s old CEO), the platform doesn’t shy away from its founder’s roots, looking at the user interface:

The platform’s homepage functions essentially the same as Twitter, however the second ‘Feeds’ section categorises content – similar to Reddit. So, a post based on Science, for example, can be found within that dedicated feed, with each ‘Feed’ being user-made with dedicated moderators, again similar to sub-Reddits.

Their user base has been steadily increasing throughout the year, and seem to be the big winner from the post-election reflection many users find themselves in, more than doubling in the last 90 days to over 23 million. The app has also risen to #1 in the App Store in the UK and US, and certainly feels like it has the momentum, with a genuinely engaged and enthusiastic core user base. For me, this is a by-product of a social media landscape crying out for something different, even if that something different is the same platform, but with a 2014-esque feel, reminding users of a bygone era of social media generally, before your user experience on any of the big apps became ‘algorithmed’ (new verb unlocked) into oblivion, and before monetisation was inextricably linked to polarisation.

So, whilst it’s still modest in size compared to X and even Threads (who themselves have seen an even larger rise in users post-election), this could change quick, and with it their stance on advertising. The platform has relied on seed funding from investors, with decentralisation theoretically helping to keep costs down, however there have been conversations reportedly between administrators around the topic of ads.

What we can gather with some confidence is that BlueSky do not want to gather/sell any user data to advertisers, meaning any targeting capabilities may be based around contextual targeting, or selecting specific sub-categories for ads to appear in. BlueSky are also committed to keeping the platform free, however it remains to be seen whether this can exist as a profitable platform without ads if it reaches the scale of X in terms of user numbers, and whether these indicators point towards an ad-supported future.

Is Brand Safety a Thing? At the moment, meh

BlueSky is a platform whose current safety measures reflect the decentralised nature of the platform. Because the platform currently doesn’t support ads and is entirely UGC, the current safety measures are largely reliant on the individual user and moderators. Due to it being an open-web, decentralised model, anyone can create any Feed and post any kind of content, similar to the sub-reddit structure on Reddit. However, there is a baseline level of moderation, with BlueSky reportedly looking to quadruple the amount of moderators in response to the platform’s rapid growth.

Currently, the platform also uses AI-detection services to analyse photos/videos and label content as deepfakes, AI-generated etc. Even though the current safety measures wouldn’t cut it in an ad-supported model, that’s not to say that if or when BlueSky decides to allow ads on platform, these moderation measures won’t evolve, or additional safety measures implemented, in line with advertiser demand.

The Real Deal or Short-Term Phase?

We’ve seen hype for X-alternatives since the takeover, most notably Threads by Meta, and Mastodon. It’s fair to say both platforms have failed to dethrone X so far, with the former boasting much more impressive overall account numbers, but with a stagnant amount of daily users, and the latter suffering from some user-friendliness issues.

Despite the remit of being ‘bold’ in these opinion pieces, I’m sitting on the fence as to whether BlueSky will actually be the ‘next Twitter’ in terms of popularity. My hunch is that the overall user number won’t rival X for a significant amount of time yet, however may come to be seen as an alternative which caters to the more community-minded users, à la Reddit.

What is clear at this point that X’s coverage of events throughout the year has clearly been a tipping point for many European and US users, and the possibility of a genuine, ad-supported alternative has never been closer.