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WIRED: Bluesky Now Has 24 Million Users. Jay Graber Is Still Vowing to Keep It From Enshittification
WIRED - (archive: https://archive.ph/TsqMt ) Bluesky Now Has 24 Million Users. Jay Graber Is Still Vowing to Keep It From Enshittification
At WIRED's The Big Interview event, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber discussed the booming user numbers for the Twitter rival and why giving social media users more control is a recipe for success.
Business
Dec 3, 2024 7:13 PM
Jay Graber at The Big Interview Photograph: Tristan deBrauwere
Bluesky has seen massive growth in the weeks following the US election. As of Tuesday, there are 24 million users on the social media platform. With great engagement comes great responsibility, which means Bluesky CEO Jay Graber has to do a lot to keep her promise to not “enshittify” the platform with ads while still funding its explosive growth.
On Tuesday, during WIRED’s Big Interview event in San Francisco, she vowed to keep that promise, saying that the company is still “focused on making sure it’s a good experience [for users] as we scale,” she said.
Enshittification, as its known, generally comes as social media platforms expand and need to squeeze money out of users in order to please investors and keep the lights on. Since Bluesky doesn’t plan to run ads, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs asked, how does Bluesky plan to make money? “Subscriptions are the first step,” Graber said, referring to a plan to have users pay a regular fee for the ability to upload higher-quality video, for example, or access certain customization features.
Keeping that in mind, Graber admitted that the recent growth in users has delayed the rollout of premium subscriptions. When asked if the feature would be coming soon, she replied, “That was the plan, but we’ve had a lot of growth recently.”
Bluesky was incubated as a social media experiment inside of Twitter, though it went fully independent before Elon Musk’s purchase of its former parent company and name change to X. After Musk’s purchase of X, Bluesky received a bump in new users as a social media alternative, though following the US election in November, during which Musk threw a great deal of support behind Donald Trump, Bluesky began attracting millions of new users.
During the post-election surge, Bluesky’s full-time staff of 20 people sometimes struggled to handle the influx, with the site temporarily crashing a few times. As the growth continues, Bluesky is now better equipped to handle its user base without interruptions. During a recent interview with Casey Newton for the Platformer newsletter, the company said it had increased the number of content moderators it works with, expanding from 25 to 100 contractors.
/snip
At WIRED's The Big Interview event, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber discussed the booming user numbers for the Twitter rival and why giving social media users more control is a recipe for success.
Business
Dec 3, 2024 7:13 PM
Jay Graber at The Big Interview Photograph: Tristan deBrauwere
Bluesky has seen massive growth in the weeks following the US election. As of Tuesday, there are 24 million users on the social media platform. With great engagement comes great responsibility, which means Bluesky CEO Jay Graber has to do a lot to keep her promise to not “enshittify” the platform with ads while still funding its explosive growth.
On Tuesday, during WIRED’s Big Interview event in San Francisco, she vowed to keep that promise, saying that the company is still “focused on making sure it’s a good experience [for users] as we scale,” she said.
Enshittification, as its known, generally comes as social media platforms expand and need to squeeze money out of users in order to please investors and keep the lights on. Since Bluesky doesn’t plan to run ads, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs asked, how does Bluesky plan to make money? “Subscriptions are the first step,” Graber said, referring to a plan to have users pay a regular fee for the ability to upload higher-quality video, for example, or access certain customization features.
Keeping that in mind, Graber admitted that the recent growth in users has delayed the rollout of premium subscriptions. When asked if the feature would be coming soon, she replied, “That was the plan, but we’ve had a lot of growth recently.”
Bluesky was incubated as a social media experiment inside of Twitter, though it went fully independent before Elon Musk’s purchase of its former parent company and name change to X. After Musk’s purchase of X, Bluesky received a bump in new users as a social media alternative, though following the US election in November, during which Musk threw a great deal of support behind Donald Trump, Bluesky began attracting millions of new users.
During the post-election surge, Bluesky’s full-time staff of 20 people sometimes struggled to handle the influx, with the site temporarily crashing a few times. As the growth continues, Bluesky is now better equipped to handle its user base without interruptions. During a recent interview with Casey Newton for the Platformer newsletter, the company said it had increased the number of content moderators it works with, expanding from 25 to 100 contractors.
/snip
5 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
That's a Lot of Users! TY for the article on BlueSky, Dennis.. 
