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Bluesky is growing at around 10 accounts/second as of an hour ago. This has put their iOS app [0] in the top position under free apps, [1] in the USA and UK Ap

Bluesky is growing at around 10 accounts/second as of an hour ago. This has put their iOS app [0] in the top position under free apps, [1] in the USA and UK App Stores. The app is MIT licensed open source. Others and myself are wondering, is their #1 position in the iOS free app category a first for an open source app? (please note that this is all apps, not just social media) [0] https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/gHuwrrw https://imgur.com/gallery/gHuwrrw

colesantiago 2y ago
Yes it is. Bluesky’s app and services is open source. With plenty of people crossing over to it, reason being because it resembles Twitter pre-Musk. Mastodon is also open source but never held or got even near the #1 top spot ever, and I don’t think it ever will due to the friction of choosing a server. People nowadays expect familiarity. ‘Don’t make me think’ that is why people aren’t going to Mastodon. As for Threads, it isn’t open source and are now introducing platform decaying features like ads which will make the platform worse. So I can say (at least for now) Bluesky is currently the platform of choice right now.
- consumer451 2y ago
  The crazy thing to me is that it's #1 in the general free app category, "Top Free Apps," not only the social media category.
tartoran 2y ago
Is that a consistent metric of 10 accounts/second? If that's so it's a decent number. Is this a sudden influx of users? Are people fleeing away from Mr. Musk?
- consumer451 2y ago
  I just did rough math by looking at this counter [0] over the course of 10 minutes. ~10 per second was about 2 hours ago, it was around 4 per second around 10AM Eastern time, yesterday. Yes on the Musk factor, it would appear. There have been a bunch Bsky mentions in multiple news sources in the US and UK in the last couple days. That appears to driving account creation. [0] https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  I want to know why too. If they’re fleeing musk then why now?
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    Related recent news: https://pagesix.com/2024/11/13/celebrity-news/jamie-lee-curtis-don-lemon-quit-x-after-elon-musk-joins-trump-cabinet/ https://pagesix.com/2024/11/13/celebrity-news/jamie-lee-curt...
  - tartoran 2y ago
    The timing is weird if it's for that reason. Maybe it has something to do with recent news developments, Id be curious to know too.
- whyrusleeping 2y ago
  its been consistent around 10/s most of today, hit even higher bursts at points. Its been steadily increasing every day for the past week.
damnloveless 2y ago
user counter: https://bcounter.nat.vg/ https://bcounter.nat.vg/
- consumer451 2y ago
  Oh, this is great. I was doing it the hard way. This has an accounts per second counter built-in!
  - damnloveless 2y ago
    natalie is awesome! if you're on bsky give her a follow!
ferbivore 2y ago
The license isn't relevant. It's not really "an open source app", it's just an app that happens to be open source. Put it this way: if, say, Godot became the #1 most popular game engine, that would be something for the open source community at large to celebrate. With Bluesky, we have absolutely nothing to celebrate. If anything, this is terrible news; instead of Twitter losing users to a genuinely open platform, they're just going to yet another VC-funded functionally proprietary service.
- consumer451 2y ago
  My point here is not to get all into the fedi/bsky/twitter/threads drama. I am not even talking about social media of any kind. My question is simple and has an objective yes/no answer. Prior to this, has any open source app [0] ever been the #1 app in the US App Store "Top Free Apps" category? [0] For the sake of this post, let's pretend that an open source app is one where the code is freely available, forkable, and under MIT license.
- kevincox 2y ago
  I think its absolutely good for open source. At the very least it is something that future people can point to and show that an open source app doesn't block success. Sure, it would be better if it was an open source app for an open source protocol, but it is still something.
  - consumer451 2y ago
    I believe even the protocol is fully open source. https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto
  - whyrusleeping 2y ago
    It is indeed an open source app for an open source protocol.
- haileyok 2y ago
  The Bluesky app and the protocol it is built on are open source, MIT licensed. The app is built using React/React Native as well as a variety of other open source tools. We maintain multiple React Native libraries as well that are open source. The network is open, and anyone has access to the firehose. Third parties are free to run labelers that integrate with the application as well as build feeds which can be used by yourself or others inside the app. Anyone is free to use the open source SDKs to build their own third-party Bluesky apps or entirely unique applications using atprotocol. To be frank, "it's just an app that happens to be open source" seems to be a pretty bad faith take on what Bluesky is.

colesantiago 2y ago

Yes it is. Bluesky’s app and services is open source. With plenty of people crossing over to it, reason being because it resembles Twitter pre-Musk. Mastodon is also open source but never held or got even near the #1 top spot ever, and I don’t think it ever will due to the friction of choosing a server. People nowadays expect familiarity. ‘Don’t make me think’ that is why people aren’t going to Mastodon. As for Threads, it isn’t open source and are now introducing platform decaying features like ads which will make the platform worse. So I can say (at least for now) Bluesky is currently the platform of choice right now.

consumer451 2y ago
The crazy thing to me is that it's #1 in the general free app category, "Top Free Apps," not only the social media category.

tartoran 2y ago

Is that a consistent metric of 10 accounts/second? If that's so it's a decent number. Is this a sudden influx of users? Are people fleeing away from Mr. Musk?

consumer451 2y ago
I just did rough math by looking at this counter [0] over the course of 10 minutes. ~10 per second was about 2 hours ago, it was around 4 per second around 10AM Eastern time, yesterday. Yes on the Musk factor, it would appear. There have been a bunch Bsky mentions in multiple news sources in the US and UK in the last couple days. That appears to driving account creation. [0] https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
dyauspitr 2y ago
I want to know why too. If they’re fleeing musk then why now?
- willcipriano 2y ago
  Related recent news: https://pagesix.com/2024/11/13/celebrity-news/jamie-lee-curtis-don-lemon-quit-x-after-elon-musk-joins-trump-cabinet/ https://pagesix.com/2024/11/13/celebrity-news/jamie-lee-curt...
- tartoran 2y ago
  The timing is weird if it's for that reason. Maybe it has something to do with recent news developments, Id be curious to know too.
whyrusleeping 2y ago
its been consistent around 10/s most of today, hit even higher bursts at points. Its been steadily increasing every day for the past week.

damnloveless 2y ago

user counter: https://bcounter.nat.vg/ https://bcounter.nat.vg/

consumer451 2y ago
Oh, this is great. I was doing it the hard way. This has an accounts per second counter built-in!
- damnloveless 2y ago
  natalie is awesome! if you're on bsky give her a follow!

ferbivore 2y ago

The license isn't relevant. It's not really "an open source app", it's just an app that happens to be open source. Put it this way: if, say, Godot became the #1 most popular game engine, that would be something for the open source community at large to celebrate. With Bluesky, we have absolutely nothing to celebrate. If anything, this is terrible news; instead of Twitter losing users to a genuinely open platform, they're just going to yet another VC-funded functionally proprietary service.

consumer451 2y ago
My point here is not to get all into the fedi/bsky/twitter/threads drama. I am not even talking about social media of any kind. My question is simple and has an objective yes/no answer. Prior to this, has any open source app [0] ever been the #1 app in the US App Store "Top Free Apps" category? [0] For the sake of this post, let's pretend that an open source app is one where the code is freely available, forkable, and under MIT license.
kevincox 2y ago
I think its absolutely good for open source. At the very least it is something that future people can point to and show that an open source app doesn't block success. Sure, it would be better if it was an open source app for an open source protocol, but it is still something.
- consumer451 2y ago
  I believe even the protocol is fully open source. https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto
- whyrusleeping 2y ago
  It is indeed an open source app for an open source protocol.
haileyok 2y ago
The Bluesky app and the protocol it is built on are open source, MIT licensed. The app is built using React/React Native as well as a variety of other open source tools. We maintain multiple React Native libraries as well that are open source. The network is open, and anyone has access to the firehose. Third parties are free to run labelers that integrate with the application as well as build feeds which can be used by yourself or others inside the app. Anyone is free to use the open source SDKs to build their own third-party Bluesky apps or entirely unique applications using atprotocol. To be frank, "it's just an app that happens to be open source" seems to be a pretty bad faith take on what Bluesky is.