When Elon Musk took control of Twitter (now X) and started making sweeping changes, many users started looking for alternatives. And after he pivoted away from promising a platform for “open discussion” towards favoring hard-right wing positions, plenty more followed.
Since November of 2024, Bluesky has become one of the most popular social media alternatives for people leaving X. Here’s the lowdown on the platform and some tips to help you make the most of it.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a social network built on the AT Protocol, an open, decentralized network for building social applications. That means, at least in theory, that any person or corporation doesn’t control it. Anyone can build a social app using AT Protocol, and users can port their followings and data from Bluesky to those other apps.
For most users, that’s not something they’ll care about. In the wake of X’s takeover, most users are looking for a replacement text-based microblogging app. But it is nice to know that users will have some recourse if Bluesky’s owners pull a “Musk” at some point or sell the service to an unsavory party.
As far as being an X replacement goes, Bluesky is great. It provides robust moderation tools, DMs, and support for images and video. There are a few things it lacks from X, like group DMs and particular user demographics — especially covering sports. But aside from those relatively minor issues, it’s a solid service.
How is Bluesky Different From X?
The most significant difference between Bluesky and X is its decentralized structure, as noted above. But there are some less apparent distinctions, too. Thanks to Bluesky’s open protocol, posts, likes, and blocks are all public. This is necessary to make this data portable across servers. It also means there is no such thing as a private account on Bluesky.
Blocks work differently on Bluesky than they do on X. On Bluesky, blocking a user severs any connection between you. If you block someone you’re in a thread with, or vice versa, your posts will become hidden from each other.
Blocking a user in your replies hides that post from anyone else looking at the thread. Once you’ve blocked someone, Bluesky also doesn’t allow you to peek at their posts. As a result, Bluesky users refer to this feature as the “nuclear block.”
And there’s one more significant difference between Bluesky and modern X: algorithms.
Does Bluesky Have an Algorithm?
One of the main attractions of Bluesky for myself and many others is that its home screen is a simple chronological feed. That means it only shows posts from people you follow in chronological order. It’s funny to think chronological posting was taken for granted on social media. Now, it has become a distinctive selling point for Bluesky.
For those who prefer content from a broader range of users, Bluesky has you covered with the “Feeds” feature.
What Are Bluesky Feeds?
Feeds allow you to tap into conversations on specific topics, certain kinds of users, etc. Bluesky Feeds can be created by users using tools like Skyfeed.app. There are plenty of existing feeds to check out and subscribe to. Bluesky also provides a few Feeds by default, like “What’s Hot,” which shows posts that have received a certain amount of likes and/or reposts.
Unfortunately, “What’s Hot” has become a magnet for users who have migrated to the site from Facebook and X and tend to reply to every post they see. This can be a little irritating if your posts routinely take off and escape your social orbit. Thankfully, Bluesky recently addressed this issue.
You can now configure your default settings to allow only people who follow you to reply. I’ve found this setting extremely helpful in reducing the number of low-quality replies I get.
As someone who’s been on Bluesky since spring 2023, the tenor of the site has also changed a lot in the last six months. Large numbers of political accounts have flocked away from X in the wake of the 2024 US election. They’ve also used the “Starter Pack” feature, which allows users to mass follow lists of other users.
As a result, you’ll see a lot of users with absurd follower/following numbers in the tens of thousands posting nothing but Facebook-tier political image spam. But hey, you can always use Bluesky’s feature-rich moderation tools to mute key terms or subscribe to mute or blocklists to screen out anything you don’t care to see.
Does Bluesky Have Monetization?
Bluesky does not currently have any monetization features. That is, there is no way for users to pay for the service or to receive income from it. However, the developers plan on adding the ability to pay a regular fee to receive certain benefits like larger video uploads.
They have said that this subscription fee, however, will not confer visibility benefits like the similar system on X.
How Do Bluesky Usernames Work?
At first glance, Bluesky account names might be awkward. By default, their format is @[YOURUSERNAME].bsky.social.
The “bsky.social” is the service that hosts your account. Bluesky is built on a protocol allowing decentralized social networking, similar to Mastodon. Your account is hosted on the service called “bsky.social”.
There might be a more significant emphasis on server choice in the future. But for now, most users are content to hang out on the default one.
However, because Bluesky uses domain names as account names, you can customize yours with any web domain you own. So, instead of being merrittk.bsky.social, I’m just merrittk.com. Here’s how to do it.
How to Set Your Bluesky Account Name To a Domain
Step 1) Click the “Settings” gear on the left side of the screen, then go into “Account.” From here, select “Handle.”
Step 2) Choose “I have my own domain.”
Step 3) Enter your domain name in the text field, then open up your domain on whichever site you used to register it (Hover, Namecheap, etc.).
Step 4) Create a new DNS entry under your domain by copying and pasting the information provided, then hit “Verify DNS Record.” It might take a while for this to work, but the end result will be that your username on Bluesky becomes your custom web domain.
What Else Should I Know About Bluesky?
The largest difference in user experience between Bluesky and modern social media is the lack of algorithms. In this respect, Bluesky is social media as it used to be. If you prefer to have an endless scroll of content provided for you by an algorithm, use the Feeds feature.
There’s also the matter of what posts are called on the app. Posts on Bluesky are just called “posts.” There was an early user-driven effort to call them “skeets,” (sky+tweet), but that has, graciously, mostly died out.
Lastly, there are several apps that will let you find your friends from X and other networks. Before logging into any third-party app, be sure to generate an App Password. You can do this under Settings > Advanced > App Passwords.
