Bluesky sees record signups day after Musk says X will go paid-only

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨geosoco@kbin.social⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://mashable.com/article/bluesky-record-new-signups-after-musk-says-charge-x-twitter-users-fee

Just around 24 hours after Musk made his comments, more than 42,000 new users joined Bluesky, making it the biggest signup day yet for the currently invite-only platform that launched earlier this year.

Bluesky saw a total of 53,585 new signups by the end of Tuesday, September 19. The new users gained in that single day make up 5 percent of the platform's entire user base of 1,125,499 total accounts.

The new user signups are tracked via the third-party website "Bluesky Stats." Looking over Bluesky signup numbers on the tracker for the past month, it appears that the platform usually sees from 10,000 to 20,000 new signups per day. Bluesky has doubled its usual daily new user numbers already, with many more hours left in the day still to go.

It's impossible to know whether Musk's comments about charging users to post on X really played a role in this, but it almost certainly had some effect.

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rivermonster@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Mastodon or bust!

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- Ktheone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Cheer up, mastodon also gained 62000 new users in the last week
  
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- UnD3Rgr0uNDCL0wN@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Hard to convince people. The twittersphere has fractured into about 4 different places, and masto is fractured even further with different servers arguing in places (a bit like here tbh) over federation.
  
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  - uis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    masto is fractured even further with different servers arguing in places (a bit like here tbh) over federation.
    
    And? Servers are inter-operable.
    
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  - Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Honestly I think Mastodon needs a third party app that makes it feel more like Twitter, similar to how reddit apps are switching to lemmy. Unfortunately, I don’t know if there were any third party Twitter apps that had the name recognition of the reddit ones.
    
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- t0lo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Mastodon is for mentally ill people :/ bsky ftw
  
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- limerod@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Literally. The android app is superb. It has come a long way with Material You theming, smoothness, and stuff. Compare that to the crap you would call twitter, X or whatever.
  
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flo24@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
isn’t bluesky invite only?

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- PaulHulford@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Each current member usually get at least one invite to share biweekly. That’s how they have been growing it.
  
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  - PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Google+ did the same thing when it rolled out, then they tried to force people to use it before they cancelled the project.
    
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  - Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    So, in the shape of a pyramid? Sounds like a good business model. I wonder if anyone has ever done that before? (yes, it’s a joke)
    
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  - Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yup. I have a bunch of invites (for sane people only)
    
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- ripcord@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It says that in the first sentence
  
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  - snowe@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    lol they didn’t even bother reading the lemmy description. 😂
    
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- geosoco@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yes, that's part of what's surprising about the number.
  
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- Clent@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yes but I’m sure many recorded invites and didn’t bother. Musk musking TSFKAT ( the-site-formerly-known-as-twitter) was the needed motivation to accept it.
  
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  - beckerist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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  - ChucklesMacLeroy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I didn’t bother and was gonna give it a walk around. Downloaded but can’t access without an invite.
    
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- LillyPip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’ve been trying to get an invite since June.
  
  Apparently if you ask, you’re not good enough or some shit.
  
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  - cypher_greyhat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You’re not missing anything. I eventually got an invite, found that 40% of the content was furry and I deleted my account.
    
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- nucleative@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Invite only is a fascinating choice for a social network that requires network effect to succeed.
  
  Gmail is the most famous/successful example but interesting to note that email is a federated network that can interoperate with every other email address too.
  
  What about this bluesky network?
  
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uis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is a problem. Bluesky is privately-owned and will do same shit.

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- realharo@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It’s also controlled by another crypto shill, so it has that in common with Twitter too.
  
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aceshigh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I wonder why people aren’t going for mastodon.

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- TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Mastadon (and the Fediverse in general, to some extent) has problems with discoverability and the average user finds federation confusing. People tend to either use microblogging to see what’s going on with people they’re interested in or to broadcast their activities to a large group of people, and Mastadon currently doesn’t fit that niche very well.
  
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  - decadentrebel@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Pretty much this. It’s why I love it for my use case (microblogging journal that only I can see), but it’s definitely not for everyone else. I
    
    t’s why if your average influencer or news consumer wants a Twitter alternative, it’s likely Threads or perhaps BlueSky, not Mastodon.
    
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- joenforcer@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The same reason people aren’t going for Lemmy.
  
  Aside from the fact that the Fediverse is an incredibly confusing concept to the average user, those same users are entrenched and connected to everyone they already want to be connected to on the same platform. Until they are essentially forced to move, they’ll stay on Twitter. The people on Lemmy and Mastodon right now are a tiny but vocal minority compared to the massive userbases of the platforms they abandoned.
  
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  - Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah there really needs to be a rethink of how the Fediverse works.
    
    I don’t want to have to subscribe to 8 different “Games” subs each with under 3000 users.
    
    It really should be like “topics” more than “sublemmys” (or whatever) where every post on the Fediverse tagged “games” will appear on your feed when you subscribe to the topic.
    
    The topics still get moderated by the local instance topic moderators and instances can defederate from troubled instances, but discoverability would improve exponentially.
    
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  - seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Aside from the fact that the Fediverse is an incredibly confusing concept to the average user
    
    How did people figure out email?
    
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- paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  They are as well!
  
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  - Asudox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Was a open source platform run on donations entirely ever be a competition for something huge like Twitter? This is a first afaik.
    
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- Bongles@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’m on there, but I use Twitter and mastodon as a follower, I don’t post. So until most of the 40ish people I follow move I’m stuck with Twitter if I want to see their posts. And I do.
  
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  - Albatross2724@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    depending on how popular the user is on Twitter, you may be able to follow them on Mastodon via bird.makeup. I use it to follow things like larger content creators, NHL teams, stuff like that.
    
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- theanon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  When someone links me the backend code of mastodan I’ll join. Till then it’s just another Facebook. I’ll stick with my own website tiblur
  
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  - Fumbles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Congratulations of joining mastodon today. 😆
    
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  - pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Not only is it open, but you can check it out yourself and install right from source if you really want to get under the hood.
    
    I’ve seen folks out there running a 1-person masto instance, just so they can be out there on the fedi from their own fully sovereign platform. Bit extreme for me, but cool that it’s an option. Definitely not just another FB in other words
    
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  - PlutoParty@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Have you at all attempted to look? It’s open source.
    
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  - mint_tamas@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    github.com/mastodon/mastodon
    
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- Fedizen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  different features and scalability
  
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WorldWideLem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I was interested in it but at the end of the day Dorsey got Twitter into its initially mediocre state, and he’s endorsed RFK Jr. as well as Musk’s purchase of Twitter. So should I really expect it to be any better? I’ll keep an eye on it but my expectations aren’t terribly high.

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- Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  and he’s endorsed RFK Jr.
  
  Gross. Yeah Dorsey sucks generally.
  
  as well as Musk’s purchase of Twitter.
  
  But I don’t hold this part against him. If some moron came along and offered to drastically overpay for my house, for example, I’d endorse the fuck out of that even if he’s a shitheel.
  
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  - Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    “I have never met Elon, and by all accounts he is terrible. However, I have seen the yacht that he paid for, and it is terrific.”
    
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- Cyberflunk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I signed up just to see the hype, and it’s the same boring Twitter, with less commitment. People just grabbing namespace.
  
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kilorat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Excuse me, signups on an INVITE ONLY platform?

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- Asuracharya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I have few invites if anyone needs
  
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  - thechadwick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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  - WillFord27@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Any chance you have any more? I’d love one
    
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  - Decide@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    If you still have any, I’d appreciate one.
    
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  - dm_me_your_feet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I d like one if you can spare one
    
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  - HaggierRapscallier@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Would appreciate one :)
    
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  - mana@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’d like one if still available, please.
    
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- HelloHotel@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Ot makes no sense,
  
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Raglesnarf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
what the fuck is Bluesky

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- mr_tyler_durden@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It’s Jack Dorsey’s “Twitter but federated this time”, except there is only 1 instance, run by Jack…. But don’t worry, “Trust me bro” it will totally be federated/open.
  
  Maybe it will be but until it is it’s just as bad as Twitter.
  
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  - Rambi@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    So is it going to be part of the fediverse at one point or will it be a separate federation?
    
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AnonymousLlama@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Always good to see more people looking into platforms besides Twitter, plenty of great places out there

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- CosmoNova@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Until they sell that platform too and you have to grow your follower base somewhere else yet again.
  
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  - Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Bluesky has federation in testing in a sandbox open to external developers, already interoperating with 3rd party implementations
    
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dangblingus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
People are so desperate for anything RESEMBLING twitter, that they’ll sign up for a trash service like BS.

Mastodon undoubtedly has more brand recognition at this point.

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- DeadNinja@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Honestly, before reading this comment I never noticed that BlueSky shortens to BS, lol
  
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- wokehobbit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Apparently not. Outside of you Lemmy assholes jerking each other off nobody even knows what the fuck Mastedon, Lemmy, or any of this is. Everyone still uses Reddit you cunts.
  
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  - IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Go home, Spez, you’re drunk
    
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qwertyWarlord@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I wouldn’t hold my breath, 42k out of 528M is nothing

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Venomnik0@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m so glad people are calling Bluesky out for the trash service it is. I just mastodon outlasts this crap and we get more people on there than bluesky

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- 13617@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  What’s wrong with Blue sky?
  
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  - IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s still a centralized. Single owner platform. Srop making assholes into millionaires
    
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shinratdr@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Strange to measure it against an invite only site, I would love to sign up but I haven’t been able to find invites. I think between Mastodon, Bluesky & Threads via ActivityPub (eventually) will get most of my communities back.

I love Mastodon & prefer it in many ways but there just aren’t enough people there. The tech & dev community is lively, everything else is essentially non-existent.

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- geosoco@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It's a convenience article. They're just reporting some number they have access to.
  
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- uis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  And why Threads instead of Mastodon if you belive it will use ActivityPub.
  
  The tech & dev community is lively, everything else is essentially non-existent.
  
  Broners are pretty active there. Biggest instance is equestria.social, some people use or run smaller instances, some use GP instances.
  
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  - shinratdr@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Threads has momentum and easy signups, it’s simple for people. I wouldn’t use it myself directly but I’m sure it would help expand the communities that are available via a Mastodon client.
    
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- KittyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Do you want one? I have a spare.
  
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ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Who is the target audience for BlueSky? Its tech isn’t as open or developed as the alternatives, is it?

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- funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  it’s invite only, which first makes you think, “oh cool - no spammers!”
  
  but then you realize you just need one spammer to get in and now they only invite spammers, and control their invites… as a form of spam! Flooding the net with “cheap” invite codes (only $10!) and multiplying.
  
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Smacks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
God I hope he gets gaslit into actually making Twitter a subscription. It would be so funny

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TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Bluesky, the “decentralized” X-alternative social media platform

“The” alternative platform?? Shots fired.

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someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
And Threads?

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BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Record sign-ups my ass. I just joined today. Sites dead. Dorsey doesn't even have an account there anymore.

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fosforus@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Why would anyone think Bluesky is any better than Twitter? There’s no fundamental differences.

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Zoness@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I want to like it but they refuse to open up the platform still after Twitter keeps handing them opportunity after opportunity and I’m afraid their chances to succeed are going to wane.

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nxfsi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
But Twitter has been dead ever since threads took over…

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NerdyPopRocks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I do wonder how many are bots. Most of Twitter is bots anyway

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mojo@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
How the hell do you even sign up

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original_reader@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If anyone has a Bluesky invite lying around, I wouldn’t mind a PM. 😁

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kokesh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
How do you sign up? I’m on the wait list for about a half year.

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m3t00@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
rain is wet. hope they like starting new instances here. feel the fediverse creaking already

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kunalkhatri@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Anything in form of competition is good imho.

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nl4real@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Yeah, I suspected this would be a real point of no return. Mastodon will also benefit, but naturally the fediverse isn’t the first thing people think of. Fortunately, Mastodon has been working on this.

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some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Maybe they just don’t have the infra (and if they still don’t, I don’t believe they ever will). Turn off invites and make it open-season or shut the whole thing down. It’s not a competitor like this.

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Kevnyon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Really liking Bluesky so far, hope it picks up some steam soon. It really is something special and way less confusing (at least for me) than Mastodon.

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couragethebravedog@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Nostr is the easiest to use decentralized Twitter alternative I’ve came across.

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