In recent days there have been many messages from X users (formerly Twitter) announcing that they were leaving the platform. And many of them have decided to move to Bluesky, a very similar platform in terms of interface and user experience, but without
It’s growing a lot. The popularity of Bluesky has grown significantly and in recent days it is getting close to a million people to sign up every day. It is estimated that there are currently around 19.2 million users, a notable figure that is certainly surprising due to this growth rate.
But Threads grows even more. However, the number is small if we compare it with the growth of Threads. So far in November, Threads has grown as much as Bluesky has users, something confirmed by its CEO, Adam Mosseri. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, indicated in the presentation of fiscal results that Threads is also growing at a rate of one million new users per day.
How Bluesky works. Unlike fediverso and its main representative, Mastodon, Bluesky is not entirely decentralized. It is based on AT Protocol (atproto), a protocol that allows you to create your own nodes that are part of Bluesky’s so-called Federation Architecture. This platform is decentralized in terms of data portability and account management, but in practice it is more centralized because, among other things, Bluesky manages and controls the main servers on which its operation depends. Bluesky’s architecture is composed of PDS, Relays and AppViews.
Hello, P.D.S.. As developer Gavin Anderegg explains, anyone can create their own node or Personal Data Server (PDS) with which they can store both their identification keys and their content, but it is not entirely simple and has a cost (about $15/ month). This gives the possibility of having full control over our data and what we publish, and can then move it to another server if we need it. In this way, Matadon is much more cumbersome, but one thing happens: the only server that actively accesses the PDS and does something productive with them is the one that Bluesky controls.
Relays y AppViews. And if PDSs are something like websites, Relays are like Google: they crawl and monitor PDSs to index new content, but setting up one on your own requires you to have plenty of space available in the first place. Specifically, about 4.5 TB to start, and according to the developers’ estimates, the needs grow at rates of 18 GB per day. And that’s with the current size of Bluesky: as there are more users, that growth rate will increase. The Relays do nothing to display that data: the so-called App Views take care of that, which is what people have the impression that Bluesky is (the user interface) although without the other two components it would be nothing. There are even more components involved, but according to Anderegg, although Bluesky is working to become fully decentralized, it still has a lot to do.
And the fediverse? Unlike Bluesky, fediverso is fully decentralized and is made up of independent servers (instances) that communicate with each other. Anyone can create their own server and connect with the ActivityPub protocol both through Mastodon and other platforms such as PixelFed (alternative to Instagram), Pleroma (similar to Mastodon, alternatives to X/Threads) or PeerTube (alternative to YouTube). Unlike Bluesky, ActivityPub solutions like Mastodon are very cheap to start up (unless you are a celebrity, then things get more expensive) and you have full control of the entire instance, which favors this alternative if you are looking for the total decentralization.
Bluesky doesn’t make (almost) any money. The other big problem with Bluesky is that it is free and intends to remain that way. They recently accepted an investment of $15 million, but that round has been led by investors with a worrying profile. Bluesky’s business model focuses on charging for offering personalized domains, which does not seem to be enough, especially if the number of users grows significantly. Here it plans the potential inclusion of advertisements, although Bluesky seems to have no intention of integrating them at the moment and in fact the network’s own architecture, partially decentralized, complicates something like this.
In WorldOfSoftware | I have left Twitter to Bluesky and its main problem is, rather, mine: managing my ego
