cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20853350
Bluesky has seen massive growth in the weeks following the US election. As of Tuesday, there are 24 million users on the social media platform. With great engagement comes great responsibility, which means Bluesky CEO Jay Graber has to do a lot to keep her promise to not “enshittify” the platform with ads while still funding its explosive growth.
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Enshittification, as its known, generally comes as social media platforms expand and need to squeeze money out of users in order to please investors and keep the lights on. Since Bluesky doesn’t plan to run ads, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs asked, how does Bluesky plan to make money? “Subscriptions are the first step,” Graber said, referring to a plan to have users pay a regular fee for the ability to upload higher-quality video, for example, or access certain customization features.
It’s worse than that - the scorpion might stick to its promise but hops off half-way across to be replaced by a far less amiable scorpion.
I like this analogy. And… yeah, it’s true - even if the current owners might vow to not enshittify their platform, they’ll likely cash out in the future, and the next owners will do it for them.