Millions of people are ready to build a new social network, fed up with Musk and the weekly changes on its platforms.
First, everyone flocked to Mastodon. It did not stick. It thrived before the downfall of Twitter and will continue to do so without the millions of Twitter users who did not turn into regular users.
Then the herd moved on to Threads by Meta – “fastest growing app on earth” – (how hard was that with one billion users able to create an account with one touch?). It has lost momentum lately, and it seems Bluesky is the newest platform saving us all from Musk.
Here is my take: When early adopters joined Twitter in its early days, we liked the freshness of what it was: A short form “microblogging” service. It was new and different; it stood out. You built a relationship with the platform and the community using it.
Now we have all those tools helping us to export and import followers and re-create an account.
I was an early adopter of Twitter and created an account in 2008 (“so cool, Rolf, you are early-on on such things”). During the first more minor hype wave, I joined Bluesky, set up my account, and log in occasionally.
It has this Twitter-like feel in terms of user experience. But it is not Twitter. You can’t replicate the Zeitgeist feeling Twitter provided back then. Twitter hit a nerve, and all these newer apps are just technical replacements. And that’s why we will end up with scattered platforms. There won’t be that one single Twitter/X replacement. And even if we settle with one dedicated platform, it will be different from Twitter.
PS: I got Bluesky invites if anyone reading this is interested. Please comment below on this post if you want one.