Bluesky soars to 18.3 million users, but faces challenges in rivaling X: Report

Bluesky, the newly rising competitor of Elon Musk's social media platform X, recently hit 18.3 million registered users, shooting to the top of Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store, Business Insider reported. Though it is nowhere close to X's 259 million active daily users and Threads' 275 million monthly active users, those who are on the platform have been praising its similarity to "old Twitter," complete with a reverse chronological timeline, less hate speech and misinformation, and more control over what content is shown in your feed, according to the report. Bluesky's daily users have increased more than 119% since the US elections, with Threads growing its user base by 8% and X staying mostly flat, according to the report, which cited research by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The report cited Jonathan Bellack, the director of Harvard's Applied Social Media Lab as saying that much of the new pull toward Bluesky is because it finally tapped into the “network effect.” This is when enough people seem to have joined the site to reach a point where users don't feel they are missing out on content on other platforms or losing their online community by switching.