Jay Graber wears her distaste for tech billionaires on her sleeve—literally. The Bluesky CEO donned a shirt with the Latin phrase “mundus sine caesaribus,” which translates to “a world without Caesars,” while speaking at SXSW today (March 10) in Austin. The move constituted a subtle jab at Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who in September wore a similar top reading “aut Zuck aut nihil,” a twist on the phrase “either Caesar or nothing” that replaces the Roman emperor with the Meta CEO.
Bluesky is growing in popularity, with upwards of 32 million users, as social media users grow upset with billionaire-owned platforms, particularly Elon Musk’s X. Bluesky’s interface is strikingly similar to that of X. But according to Graber, the parallels stop there. Its customizable features allow users to opt out of particular feeds or conversations, a move that supports an “anti-toxic experience” for users, she said. Initially incubated in 2019 by Twitter under its former CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky launched two years later as an independent company.
Bluesky users can “fork off” at any time
Bluesky’s decentralized, open-source network also makes it billionaire-proof, said Graber, as users who decide to leave can take their followers with them or even create an entirely new network. “The fact that users have that choice means we’re incentivized to keep serving [them],” she explained. “If a billionaire came in and bought Bluesky and took it over, or I decided tomorrow to change things in a way that people didn’t really like, then they could fork off and go on to other applications.”
Bluesky’s commitment to an open network extends to collaborating with other apps like Flashes, an Instagram-style photo-sharing platform. Bluesky users who sign up for Flashes can decide to share their content across both apps, said Graber, who noted that the experience parallels users of Meta’s text-heavy Instagram and photo-centric Instagram apps—with one key caveat. “They’re creating one unified ecosystem among the things that they own, so you’re on a Meta property no matter which one of those apps that you use,” said Graber.
The path to profitability
Despite its sudden surge in popularity, it remains to be seen how Bluesky will make money. The fledging company, which currently only has 21 employees, is exploring a subscription model as a “first step,” said Graber, who noted Bluesky is also looking at the monetization of developer services.
Another issue facing Bluesky is data-hungry A.I. models scraping its content. Musk’s xAI uses X’s user content to train its Grok chatbot. Bluesky claims it has no plans to feed such information into A.I. models. But that hasn’t stopped others from scraping the platform’s content.
To combat such behavior, Graber said Bluesky is “working with some partners on developing a framework for user content” in regard to data use for generative A.I. Such a framework would parallel the robots.txt files used by websites, a standard that directs search engine crawlers which webpages they can or cannot access and is largely respected. “It’s an emerging conversation right now that there needs to be more clarity and transparency around how data is used,” said Graber.