Bluesky, the open-source alternative to X (formerly Twitter), is opening its decentralised platform to everyone. It means, there will no longer be a waitlist. The service, which opened in beta last spring, currently has a little over three million users and that figure is expected to shoot up quickly.
It’s interesting to note that Bluesky began as an internal project at Jack Dorsey’s Twitter but Bluesky was no longer associated with Twitter after Elon Musk stepped in. The platform is part of a growing movement for decentralised social media that can tackle the shortcomings of centrally-controlled platforms like Facebook, X and TikTok.
The challenge before Bluesky is simple: Standing up to Threads’ 130 million monthly active users and, of course, the hundreds of millions on X. Bluesky has many functions that look like X.
Bluesky’s code is open source, which allows people outside of the company transparency into what is being built and how. Developers can write their own code on top of the AT Protocol, so they can create a custom algorithm to an entirely new social platform. All this gives users more control over their social media experience.