Bluesky saw a huge escalate in the weeks following the US election. As of Tuesday, the social media platform had 24 million users. With great commitment comes great responsibility, which means Bluesky CEO Jay Graber has a lot to do to keep her promise not to “embarrass” the platform with ads while also funding its explosive growth.
On Tuesday, during WIRED’s substantial interview in San Francisco, she vowed to keep that promise, saying the company remains “focused on providing a good experience.” [for users] as we scale up,” she said.
Enschittification, as it is known, usually occurs as social media platforms grow and the need to squeeze money from users to please investors and keep the lights on in the market. Since Bluesky doesn’t plan to run ads, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs asked how Bluesky plans to make money? “Subscriptions are the first step,” Graber said, referring to plan requiring users to pay a regular fee to be able to upload higher quality videos, for example, or access certain customization features.
With that in mind, Graber admitted that recent user growth has delayed the launch of premium subscriptions. When asked if this feature would be available soon, she replied, “That was the plan, but we’ve seen a lot of growth recently.”
Bluesky was created as part of Twitter’s social media experiment, although it gained full independence before Elon Musk acquired its former parent company and changed its name to X. After Musk purchased X, Bluesky gained novel users as an alternative to social media, although after the November elections in the US, during which Musk gave huge support to Donald Trump, Bluesky began to attract millions of novel users.
Jay Graber and Kate Knibbs in “The Big Interview.”Photo: Tristan deBrauwere
During the post-election surge, Bluesky’s 20-person full-time staff sometimes struggled to cope with the influx of novel hires, resulting in the website temporarily crashing several times. As we continue to grow, Bluesky is now better equipped to support our user base without disruption. During the recent one interview with Casey Newton for the Platformer newsletterthe company said it has increased the number of content moderators it works with from 25 to 100 contractors.
One of the hallmarks of Bluesky is the decentralized platform’s focus on customization and user control. Customizing what you want to see is effortless with user lists, starter packs, and muted words. Advanced users even have the option to set up their own website hosting providers if they choose to go through this process.
Although Bluesky has currently captured the zeitgeist, Meta’s Threads, another alternative to Twitter/X, continues to grow also and remains much larger. Alec Booker, a spokesman for Meta, told WIRED by email that more than 35 million novel users signed up for Threads in November. Feeling competitive pressure, Meta announced plans for more customization options to add to threads.