Why Bluesky is winning

What we can learn from how the news broke around South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law.

Let's start with an obvious premise. There is no Twitter replacement, and there will never be another Twitter.

While Twitter was always one of the smaller big social networks, it packed an enormous punch for a simple reason. Writers lived there.

I'm talking about reporters, activists, executives, TV producers, academics, and more. But they were all writers who live-tweeted reality in a competitive yet collaborative way that was useful and addictive. It was especially useful to others who work in media, who then explain reality to the rest of us. Being "good" on Twitter was a somewhat democratic way to shape conventional wisdom by influencing those media creators. This offered individuals a power that never existed to ordinary people before. It's basically what Twitter invented.

That sort of influence lingers on "X" after Elon Musk's purchase and contortions of the site. It will likely go on indefinitely in a less potent way, as a sizable chunk of the site has no political issue with or an actual affinity for Elon. The legacy value of the app goes well beyond the name "Twitter," which is now more a category than a brand.

Judging X as a business or a product will always be difficult as the central proprietor of the site doesn't operate in the same reality as the rest of us. And Elon often seems to be building a service designed for one user: Elon Musk.

Whether or not X played a pivotal role in Donald Trump's victory, X's CEO would probably take that success over any number of users or income—though the constant marketing of "Premium" along with lawsuits targeting lost advertising dollars does suggest an increasingly desperate lust for revenue.

What is clear is that Bluesky is winning the battle to become the place writers live. You can literally watch the explosive growth in real-time. You have to assume most of that growth is coming from eX-Twitter users.

This should lead to many questions like "Does that even matter anymore? Has social media evolved beyond text in incomprehensible ways to aging heads like me? Shouldn't this be a video with text I could digest in 45 seconds?"

My answers are: Probably, probably, and probably.

My definitive answer to "Does it matter where writers live when 'creators' rule?" is "Only if you care about the news." And for caring about the news, nothing beats the old Twitter.

I got that 2010 feeling watching the political conflict in South Korea unfold on Bluesky. It happened in an "everything all at once" way interspaced by people posting their research, photos, and takes about everything else. It also happened in real time. The military is at the parliament! Woh! Now what?

Probably the most definitive "Old Twitter Moment" was when Verge editor Sarah Jeong just happened to be in Seoul and was posting live. She's not a politics reporter, but she is a writer. Her first-hand experience created the vicariousness that makes microblogging so unique.

I wasn't on X yesterday, so I don't know how it felt there. Given how other breaking news events have gone down there recently, I cannot imagine it was the same.

Twitter was once a "potential disaster risk reduction tool." Elon's changes to the API and verification have dramatically altered its usefulness. However, the most significant change is that the site discourages anything resembling a chronological experience.

Bluesky is chronological by default. It has algorithms, even ones you can play with, but you opt into those feeds. And breaking news comes alive in that real-time, chronological feed. You're involved in the news because you've selected the sources and can alter them anytime.

Why does Elon favor the algorithm?

We have evidence that his main priority is seeing posts from him and his allies. He posts enough that he should be able to see a lot of him, but not enough for his tastes. Also, it helps him bury links out of the site, which he has all but admitted he is doing.

When you're involved in the news, you want to click out and find out more. It's an inherently democratic experience that allows you to experience the full power of the open web.

Elon doesn't like that. It isn't good for his business, especially if his business is keeping you on the site and shaping your reality.

What's good for business is that a chronological experience keeps writers trained on the site and makes the site part of the story. X has enough legacy reach and users to keep that stickiness and newsworthiness, especially since Elon is a main character in the news. But that power is waning and seeping toward bluer skies, which is far from perfect but definitively better than X, at least to me, in terms of technology and quality of users.

That may not matter to you. But it matters to writers. And they know how to make it matter to you.