Bluesky Is No Longer Invite-Only, in Case Anyone Cares
When Twitter began to truly fall apart in late 2022, everyone who was still subjecting themselves to the site’s inferno looked for a viable alternative. Options were few and far between at the time, and one of them was Bluesky, an exclusive, invite-only social media platform that actually looked and felt a lot like Twitter. Now, almost a year later, Bluesky is out of beta and anyone can join. Anyone else want one?
Bluesky isn’t exactly a Twitter clone, even if it was founded by former Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. Unlike the Bird app, Bluesky is a decentralized social network. This means that the network is not controlled by a single company such as Twitter. Instead, people can choose which hosting provider they want to connect to Bluesky with. You can choose the Bluesky network or any other. Whatever you choose, you can freely post and view messages without problems, just like with Mastodon . You’ll also find it much easier to customize and tailor your experience than with a traditional social network. You can read a little more about how Bluesky works here .
Besides its unique customization, Bluesky’s initial appeal was its exclusivity . The network was still in its testing phase, so the developers wanted a limited number of users on the site to keep the situation under control. The only way to get on the site was by being invited to join, which usually meant knowing someone who had an invitation code.
That’s finally changing. On February 6, Bluesky announced that the site is fully operational : there are no more invitations, and you can register an account just like on any other social network. If you want, you can go to the Bluesky registration page here and follow the instructions to get started. You can also download the app for iOS and Android .
However, I’m not sure Bluesky will be successful even after it opens its doors. Although the initial monitoring made the site intriguing, it continued for a full year . Although the site continued to grow steadily with more accessible invite codes, its adoption was slow and throughout this period of time it continued to discourage most potential interested users. Perhaps if the public launch had happened when Twitter was at the height of its crap (perhaps when the legacy blue checks started going bust?) or even when Threads launched last summer , there would have been more interest. But as far as I can see, in February 2024, most people have returned to their social media habits. If you tried Threads and liked it, you may now be loyal to the Meta platform. If you’re still hopelessly addicted to X/Twitter, maybe you don’t need to look for another app that will break your brain. (And if you haven’t left X yet, what will finally convince you? Probably not this.)
However, I wish Bluesky all the best. Unlike Threads or X, the site actually has something unique with its decentralized network (even if Mastodon did it first), and it’s not as directly tied to the evil billionaire. If you’re interested, sign up for an account and take a look around. It can’t be worse than X.