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FORGET ABOUT IT

What Is Bluesky — And Why You Don't Really Need To Care About It

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What Is Bluesky — And Why You Don't Really Need To Care About It
A new social media app that's currently invite-only appears to be the new promised land, considering how things at Twitter are going.
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I like to count time on the internet by guessing how long ago something happened. It's an easy yet cruel game — especially when you're dealing with moments of failure, which are my favorite.

Over the past few years we've seen apps like Dispo, (a mobile photo-sharing application) go from hyped darling to something irrelevant, and era-specific booms — like the audio app Clubhouse, which cut half its staff this week — come to a crushing end (of sorts). Spotify immediately copied Clubhouse's idea, and they've shut that down too. Among the bigger fish, only after years in purgatory has Facebook kind of turned things around, and even though he's having "his best year in a decade," the metaverse is still burning money.

And so it's inevitable that one day drastic change will come for Twitter too. While Elon Musk, now in charge, is trying his best to accelerate that, Twitter's former CEO and Co-founder Jack Dorsey has already stepped in with a new app called Bluesky. Dorsey wasn't perfect and got a lot of things wrong, his sartorial choices are questionable too, and Bluesky appears to be round two.

The New York Times says "it's being called Twitter 2.0" and that the buzz around it "has been intense." It's intense because the same 17 people are talking about it on Twitter, and on the app.

The Verge called its small community "delightful to be a part of." Of course it would be, that's because it's in an invite-only stage, meaning for plebs like me and you (sorry for judging), we're not getting that email for a minute. I get the idea of invite-only, possibly to mitigate any technical disasters, but if it's touting decentralization as a core tenant, then why populate it with the usual suspects first?

The app looks and behaves like Twitter — including its terms of service — and has already courted popular online posters, like Dril, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chrissy Teigen. Now, let's get to the point. Should you care about this app, and is this the one that we've all been waiting for? No.

Going by first impressions, Bluesky is not going to be that different from Twitter. Yes, the recent changes that've mangled Twitter into a cesspool of tepid takes will not be replicated on Bluesky, but it's yet to offer something truly new. By first letting in the same people who ran the circus on Twitter, you're probably going to make it indistinguishable from the bird app by the time we're all on it.

Operation Bluesky has commenced, and we are now a part of its universe. Had this moment in time taken place in 2013, I would've been clamouring for an invite to make sure I got a sweet handle (which show up as @.bsky.social), but now I couldn't be happier to see everyone leave and rush to join something that's going to be considered 2000-and-late in a few months. At best we get a new place to clout chase and dunk, at worst this becomes a stub on Jack Dorsey's Wikipedia page.



Comments

  1. Angelita Pruett 1 year ago

    This post is stupid. All the reasons it states that people -won't- go to Bluesky are exactly the reasons people -would- go to Bluesky. The fact that Bluesky is "not going to be that much different from Twitter" is exactly what people leaving Twitter are looking for. A Twitter replacement. Twitter-like functionality without all the problems a Musk is causing that will soon bankrupt Twitter.

  2. John Doe 1 year ago

    Musk-less Twitter is a fantastic thing.

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