It's fun to report that Bluesky gained 1 million new users per day for a few days last week. But what's far more important will be the steady state of new users over the next year or two.
Virtually all of Bluesky's growth has and will come from X/Twitter exiles, which has 250 million daily active users (DAU). Only active users will bother to switch platforms. In response to some event in the or on Twitter, some users run out the door, to some alternative. After Musk bought Twitter in Nov. 2022, a lot of users moved to Mastodon, which stagnated, never took off. This month, after Trump's election with Musk's collaboration, a greater "Xodus" to Bluesky took place.
Now Bluesky has about 22 million (total) users. What might constitute success for Bluesky? I would say that if Bluesky could attract another 10% of Twitter DAUs, i.e. 25 million new users over the next year, that would be a smashing success.
25,000,000 / 365 days = 70,000. So, Bluesky today is at 300,000 new users per day. If that levels off to 70,000 or more, I will call that a smashing success.
