Bluesky thinking

Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, turning it into X and something many people dislike, a growing number of former users have actively begun looking for alternative microblogging sites. That trend has taken on new life in the wake of Musk’s mind-boggling decision to put himself and X at the service of Donald Trump.

The problem with abandoning Twitter, as a number of commentators have pointed out, is that it is still hugely popular, and will increasingly come under the sway of the wrong people; which is why, against their better judgement, many users continue to post there. But that does not mean that we do not continue to look for alternatives, and in that search, in which Mastodon began to have an important advantage among other competitors, from open source or distributed management alternatives, to others sponsored by the dreaded Meta, which is only interested in harvesting our data.

Bluesky has a number of advantages that put it ahead of the pack. It won the support of the founders of Twitter, which is no small thing, and in fact, the color of its logo is evocative of the small blue bird.

However, that support from the founders was relatively short-lived, with Jack Dorsey leaving the company in May, and throwing his support behind apps based on other protocols, such as Nostr. Nevertheless, Bluesky marches on, and in fact, has been the main beneficiary from…