Rising real-time social app Bluesky is looking to its next stage, with the platform now working on paid add-on features that would be made available to users via monthly subscription.
As you can see in this example, which has been posted on GitHub, the Bluesky team is currently experimenting with a range of add-ons that users could pay to access.
The current listing of add-on elements includes:
- A “Bluesky+” profile badge
- Custom app icons
- Profile customizations
- Higher-quality video uploads
- Higher-quality video playback
- Post translations
- Analytics
- Bookmarks
So, at this stage at least, it’s pretty much X Premium, but for BlueSky instead. Of course, Bluesky doesn’t look to be offering account verification within its package, which it knows should not be a paid feature. But most of the other add-ons replicate what you can pay for on X, though this is only an early overview, and as reported by TechCrunch, these elements could change over time.
Bluesky has seen a rapid rise in interest of late, with the app reporting a more than 500% increase in usage in the U.S. over the past few months. Bluesky’s CEO Jay Graber recently said that the app is now up to 24 million active users, which is still a far cry from the other major social apps, but represents a huge jump from the 9 million or so that it had back in September.
As such, the app’s now looking to the next stage of funding, and how it keeps increasing its capacity, while serving its expanding audience. And while Graber would ideally prefer to avoid ads as a means to monetize the app, its rising costs may still force it in that direction.
“Subscriptions are the first step,” Graber recently told Wired, but subscriptions, thus far, haven’t been a pathway to major riches for other social apps.
X Premium, for example, has been purchased by fewer than 1% of X users, while the most successful new social subscription offering, Snapchat+, which is now up to 12 million subscribers, has only been taken up by around 1.4% of the app’s total audience.
As such, it’s hard to see how subscriptions are going to be enough for Bluesky either. And again, with the app being forced to buy up servers to increase its capacity, and with its funding likely drying up, this is a question that the company will have to address, sooner, rather than later.
Honestly, I don’t see any scenario where Bluesky avoids ads. I understand the utopian vision of a more open, free, and less encumbered social platform, akin to the experiences of social past. But keeping all systems operational, and available, for 24 million+ people is expensive, no matter how you approach it.
So subscriptions, really, are a no-brainer, and will be coming to Bluesky soon. And as with other platforms, only a small selection of users will sign up, which will then see Bluesky forced to look at other options to secure more investment, and generate income independently.
So if you like Bluesky as it is, as an alternative to other, ad-filled social apps, enjoy it now, while you can.
