Since Twitter was taken over by Elon Musk, the social media app has been on a notable downward spiral. There are numerous changes that have caused this descent including the name change, the far looser policies which has certainly contributed to racism and hate speech becoming more prevalent on the app, the verification feature being awarded to anyone who pays a subscription and numerous other questionable decisions.
This has made unhappy users look for alternative apps. The one which seems to be the most promising to take a considerable amount of X’s audience is the brand new Bluesky app which launched to the public earlier in 2024 but had a massive rise in users after the 2024 presidential election. The surge is most likely due to Elon Musk’s changes to Twitter (now known as X) and his extremely right wing political views which have affected the algorithm greatly. After Donald Trump won president this made people who were left wing or even neutral want an alternative and Elon Musk becoming a political figure exacerbated these feelings.
The major question is if Bluesky can finally pose a threat to X. Many have tried other apps, like Threads and Truth Social, but X has always kept its audience and many of the people looking for alternatives have circled back to X. This most likely will also be the result of Bluesky’s attempt.
Unfortunately, the marketability of these alternatives is very limited due to basically everyone knowing about X. The general consensus is that these alternatives are just copy-and-paste versions of Twitter which is definitely the case for BlueSky. There have been similarities between X and other alternatives, but Bluesky does not even try to hide it. Bluesky is extremely derivative of the pre-Musk Twitter style. This means that the site will always be seen as a bootleg Twitter.
Although the old Twitter style is loved, this just seems lazy on Bluesky’s part and has no innovation. It is not very creative, so it won’t succeed, similar to how Threads and Truth weren’t able to get out of Twitter’s shadow.
It is very unfortunate because X is a very bad place right now with racism, sexism and other hate being very prevalent on the app. An alternative would be very nice but it most likely won’t happen anytime soon. Eventually, X will collapse as Musk keeps making extremely poor decisions but that seems to be no time soon as no social media ever has come close. While many people continue to want an alternative to X, Bluesky does not have the innovation to be this alternative.
Photo obtained from Bluesky