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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 9:49 AM

    Bluesky numbers go down down down

    Bluesky corp has always loathed the userbase it ended up with. This is why the new CEO is trying to get more totally-not-Nazis in. (The users the rationalist, coiner and neoreactionary staff originally wanted.)

    The graph since 2023 shows bursts of new users every time Musk or sometimes Zuckerberg faceplants, followed by slow declines.

    "focus beyond the app" is an excuse for failing at the app. The AT Proto infrastructure is a diverse decentralised ecosystem in the same sense as cryptocurrencies - it has a hard dependency on Bluesky Social PBC infra for 99.99+% of users. There is no programme to reduce that number other than saying "decentralised" a lot.

    For comparison, mastodon.social is around 20% of fedi - large, but the other 80% can and do tell them to go whistle as appropriate. AT Proto was always a Not Invented Here of fedi.

    It's not clear where the missing Bluesky users are going. Looks like ... nowhere!

    techcrunch.com/2026/08/11/blue

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  • KrazovKrazov@mstdn.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 10:30 AM

    @davidgerard I cringed at the comparative charts, though. X is a private company and I think they can report whatever. Threads has historically included many Instagram accounts, so while the numbers themselves might be correct, I don't think it's doing that good. I don't see many screenshots from Threads, whereas from other networks I do.

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:28 AM

    @thesdev @Krazov they do report some numbers. But then, they also report all Twitter users as Grok's userbase. You can say almost any shit in a filing as long as it's not literally a lie.

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  • Will Deakinwnd@fosstodon.org
    Aug 12, 2026, 2:53 PM

    @Zendadaist @davidgerard my, albeit based on anecdote, is a chunk of people have just given up. Some may 1. slither back to Twitter, 2. just quit, and some do 1. then 2. However bad Twitter was, it certainly hasn't then got any better.

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  • Ian Foggianfogg@mastodon.social
    Aug 13, 2026, 8:49 AM

    @Zendadaist @davidgerard I think sadly everyone is on Threads lapping up Zuckerberg's algorithmic feed — at least based on the level of interaction I get on cross posts on Bluesky, Threads and here

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  • Ian Foggianfogg@mastodon.social
    Aug 13, 2026, 11:10 AM

    @davidgerard @Zendadaist The algorithm is elevating extreme and sensationalist viewpoints on Threads a lot.... And, in every app design tweak, Meta is making the timeline view harder to find

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  • robert daniel pickardrdp@notpickard.com
    Aug 12, 2026, 10:18 AM

    @davidgerard

    why is that a bad thing?

    this seems like it is falling in to the 'growth at all costs' mentality that wrecked so much of the web.

    i cant think of a single example of where constant growth translated into a better experience for the people there

    not a defense of the crypto weirdos that run bsky and not a statement about ATproto, but this seems fine?

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  • DuncanDuncanMSussex@mas.to
    Aug 12, 2026, 10:47 AM

    @rdp @davidgerard it's more that they have VC backing and so they're in trouble if they don't meet benchmarks.

    Plus, I think they're not sustainably funded and they'd need to be much bigger to break even on their current model (but don't quote me!).

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  • DuncanDuncanMSussex@mas.to
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:34 AM

    @davey_cakes @rdp @davidgerard yeah, it got more quiet a while ago and much as I'd have loved Masto to have more lasting traction in the mainstream or for the threadiverse to eclipse Reddit it really doesn't *need* to grow.

    So far as social media goes Fedi is very long term sustainable.

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  • Daveydavey_cakes@mastodon.ie
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:47 AM

    @davidgerard @DuncanMSussex @rdp

    Another thing about Bluesky is they basically did all the things to make Twitter users happy that Mastodon was the worst in the world for not doing.

    Much as that has indeed done the trick for a lot of folks, it hasn't been a magic bullet for replacing the baddie platforms either.

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:50 AM

    @davey_cakes @DuncanMSussex @rdp

    they could have been twitter without twitter, but bluesky corp *has* dropped the ball repeatedly since public launch in 2023, though.

    i don't think they have any ideas as a business and they still don't have a sustainable business model, just get more money from the blockchain VCs.

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  • Charlie Strosscstross@wandering.shop
    Aug 12, 2026, 1:10 PM

    @rdp @davidgerard It's not fine: whenever a social media corp prioritizes revenue over users it destroys communities.

    Example: I'm part of a specific community discourse among professional SF writers. AIUI it started on Prodigy, pre internet then migrated to usenet then fetched up on Twitter before Musk trashed the joint. The SF authors then flocked to Bluesky, not Mastodon. But there was fragmentation and damage to the social graph with each move. Now BSky are attacking it again.

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  • Charlie Strosscstross@wandering.shop
    Aug 12, 2026, 1:13 PM

    @rdp @davidgerard The problem here isn't just that I lose connections to my professional peers: it's that *we're talking in front of an audience of readers*. When they pivot like this, soc media co's wreck discoverability—followers can't go from author A to author B and keep track of their new book releases. So it's creating a tangible harm.

    I'm pretty sure Elon Fucking Musk cost me a lot of money, very indirectly, when he gutted Twitter and turned it into an echo chamber for Nazi propaganda.

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  • Jesse T. AlfordanEXPer@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 5:10 PM

    @cstross @rdp @davidgerard I definitely lost track of a bunch of authors I followed when I refused, when evacuating Twitter, to go to Bluesky on the basis, basically, that it was the same business model and culture that did a Twitter, and would obviously do a Twitter again. Mastodon offers a different set of problems, but at least it’s not setting me up for the story I’ve repeatedly seen before.

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  • Robert KingettWeirdWriter@caneandable.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 5:24 PM

    @cstross Could we go back to IRC/forums/Usenet again? I do hate this cycle keeps fucking up communities that make the internet not so shitty

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  • Люблю хлебthedansimonson@lingo.lol
    Aug 12, 2026, 10:43 AM

    @davidgerard for the flagship instance of fedi to only be *20%*, that is remarkably flat for something that is usually power law distributed

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  • Sussus Amogussussusamogus@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:20 AM

    @davidgerard as someone who lurks both there and here, while the trends are defo a problem for Bluesky (the company), i think the platform itself has enough decentralization baked in that there's a decent chance it just becomes "mastodon but with a different protocol and community" edit: if the company collapses that is

    (i do have plenty of Other Thoughts but i figure i should keep it relevant :p )

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:25 AM

    @sussusamogus i think there's no way that can happen while it's 99.99+% Bluesky Social PBC for the big expensive bottlenecks.

    The design of AT Proto seems to need big central bottlenecks. Perhaps there's a version that doesn't, but so far it's entirely hypothetical.

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  • Sussus Amogussussusamogus@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:38 AM

    @davidgerard AFAIUI, relays are the most expensive bit, and aren't strictly required. there's also a decent chance the cost of running one would lower a fair bit if Bsky pbllc went down given there'd be a lot less accounts to crawl, but I'll concede that's mostly conjecture on my part :p

    i could see the PLC directory going down being a problem, though; I'm not 100% sure if / what people have planned for that, other than i think the eurosky people maintain a read-only mirror(..?)

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  • Sussus Amogussussusamogus@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:39 AM

    @davidgerard saying all this, I'm far from an expert on how atproto works, so i could very well be missing something. anything i know has mostly come from idle curiosity / passive absorption lol

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:40 AM

    @sussusamogus the atproto appview is also a killer

    yeah, lotta the problems are the bsky shit doesn't scale without huge centralised control points.

    Fedi scales and is robust because it's *actually* decentralised, but then you have the disadvantages like really bad user discovery, and no real introductory algorithm to get new users into the swing of things. Masto users will of course dive in to explain at length why sucking is good actually.

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  • Sussus Amogussussusamogus@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:49 AM

    @davidgerard interesting! i was under the impression that atproto scaled better at larger sizes *because* of the more centralized aspects, but i suppose that idea mostly does come from that side so lol

    ahh just now seeing the edit, woops! but yeah, seems like different designs for different goals

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:54 AM

    @sussusamogus yeah. bluesky are coiners, so bluesky corp think very much in terms of saying "decentralised!!" a lot while maintaining multiple points of absolute control. every time something breaks, another central point of control is exposed.

    this stuff was never designed to be *operationally* decentralised, but it sure does great decentralisation theatre. Decentralised!!

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  • Sussus Amogussussusamogus@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:14 PM

    @davidgerard didn't know that was The Buzzword in that space (always ignored them lmfao), but it certainly makes sense why they like talking about it! just seems to annoy people that understand decentralized systems, and at best means nothing to people who don't

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  • Robert KingettWeirdWriter@caneandable.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 5:21 PM

    I'm starting to believe RSS is the only social media I/we need, TBH. :) I'll never understand this desire for *any* algorithm, even a custom one, but I have no horse in the BSky race at all. They are just a thing I funnel all my posts to. It could vanish today and I wouldn't blink because I have folks following me via RSS and my mailing list, but I do wonder about more of the long form stuff others are building over there though and how that will succumb to decay. @davidgerard @sussusamogus

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  • jkdelauneyjkdelauney@tech.lgbt
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:57 AM

    @davidgerard @sussusamogus here, how about this “it forces actual community building rather than community discovery”.

    Or “algorithms are how you get post capitalist techofascism, do you want (more) post capitalist techofascism?”

    O’kay, I’m done.

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  • John Mark OckerbloomJMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:29 AM

    @davidgerard From the article, it looks like Instagram/Threads is likely where a lot of folks dissatisfied with other platforms are going (though it's not clear how many of the new users there are coming from Bluesky).

    What source do you prefer for fediverse statistics? It's good that no one node (including the big one I'm on) is dominating the network, but it'd also be nice for the fediverse as a whole to pick up more users from elsewhere, and I'm not sure if active users are growing or not.

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  • DuncanDuncanMSussex@mas.to
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:30 AM

    @davidgerard if they're pivoting to ATProto they've failed. Technically ATProto isn't just Bluesky. In practice that's all it is.

    (I've been of the view that AT was a mistake - their not just going with AP consumed a lot of their resources pointlessly and it's been harmful to the open internet)

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  • DuncanDuncanMSussex@mas.to
    Aug 12, 2026, 11:57 AM

    @davidgerard true, but iirc wasn't it originally a sideproject to explore decentralisation for Twitter and deciding to develop AT came a year or so after?

    Like I definitely recall when it was still in beta seeing an interview with someone central (not Masnick) that included some talk on why they didn't go with AP. Didn't keep the link, sadly.

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:12 PM

    @DuncanMSussex yeah it was a twitter offshoot. then they accidentally ended up with a surprisingly successful social network. then they hated all the users they actually got.

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:16 PM

    @DuncanMSussex they didn't go with AP because it didn't authenticate particular things in particular ways that sounded a lot like blockchain dev expectations. so they did a big NIH.

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  • ⁂ L. Rhodeslrhodes@merveilles.town
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:00 PM

    @davidgerard Wow, when you said number go down, I figured that meant single digits, not more than a quarter! I'd like to see growth numbers for Blacksky, Northsky, etc to see if maybe part of the story isn't a measure of decentralization kicking in, but I'm skeptical that it could be enough to fully offset losses that large.

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  • RycochetRycochet@furs.social
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:07 PM

    @davidgerard There are consequences to being openly antagonistic to your userbase when you're not an established power player? What a shock. You know what will cheer them up though? Waffles.

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  • Pippip@infosec.exchange
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:12 PM

    @davidgerard Damn. Kinda makes me feel vindicated for deleting my bsky the other day.

    Reasons I originally joined Bluesky:
    - Twitter had become a Nazi bar
    - Bluesky didn't have ads
    - You could use Bluesky without an algo
    - Bluesky said they would be de-centralized

    Reasons I left Bluesky:
    - It started to feel actually dangerous, due to the platforming of JD Vance and ICE
    - It never ACTUALLY became decentralized
    - Mods ignoring the users, and actively taunting them instead
    - Bluesky specifically ignoring voices from the marginalized Black, Trans, and Palestinian communities
    - Bluesky welcoming a partner firm doing fucking AI training

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  • David Gerarddavidgerard@circumstances.run
    Aug 12, 2026, 12:15 PM

    @pip i did predict it was the titanic in april 2023, precisely because of the fuckwits running it

    who knew that rationalist coiner neoreactionaries would fuck up?

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