Twitter / X competitor Bluesky officially opens to everyone, no invite code needed

Still looking for somewhere to take your short, text-based social media posts now that Elon Musk has sculpted the platform formerly known as Twitter in his own image?

Well, if the only thing holding you back from the X-competitor Bluesky was the lack of an invite code, you are in luck. On Tuesday, social media platform Bluesky finally ditched the invite-only system and opened registration to everyone. 

Now, anyone who wants to open a Bluesky account can do so.

Can an open Bluesky compete with Twitter?

Shortly after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, since rebranded as X, many of the social networks users flocked to various competing social media alternatives. Among the many competitors, two basically stood out from the pack: The Meta-backed Instagram-companion app, Threads, and a scrappy new service called Bluesky.

Bluesky may have seemed like an odd contender at the time. The platform faces off against two established giants in the space. Bluesky was brand new at the time too, officially launching as a barebones social media service shortly after Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022. Bluesky for iOS wouldn’t even launch until February of last year.

However, Bluesky has a few special things going for it: an ethos based around decentralization and, perhaps the most important, a connection to the Twitter of old. Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey is a backer of Bluesky. In fact, one of old Twitter’s final acts in the months before Musk’s takeover was to provide Bluesky with $13 million in funding. Bluesky is also registered as a public benefit corporation setup for the general public unlike other social media platforms.

What was going on with Bluesky when it was invite-only?

During various episodes of Musk-created turmoil over on X, users would seek out Bluesky invite codes hoping to find a new social media home. Bluesky was able to attract more than 3 million users under the old invite-only system. 

Interest in Bluesky has certainly ebbed-and-flowed over the past year, depending on what happened on X. And Bluesky also faced its own growing pains regarding how to deal with content moderation. 

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber told The Verge that the reason it took so long for Bluesky to officially launch to the public was because it wanted to complete certain moderation features and make sure its infrastructure was stable.

Is it too late for Bluesky to be a contender?

But some may view Bluesky’s failure to strike while the iron was hot and ditch the invites months ago as a major misstep. There was a time when Bluesky could have possibly been the X competitor, back before Meta launched Threads in July. However, Threads has become the clear number two in the category, recently boasting around 100 million monthly active users.

Nonetheless, Bluesky does have an active user base, growing steadily in popularity among certain niche communities. Now that it’s open to the public, it’s time to see just how Bluesky fares when openly competing against two social media behemoths.