It wasn't adopted, it was falsely created.
I'd go even further to say that it isn't a social network, it's an add-on to another social network.
Has there ever been a successful case of bootstrapping a new social media product with an existing userbase? Like not just added features or merging two together.
Google+ was successful from any real metric but it didn’t replace Facebook so it was axed.
Hangouts (now Meet?) was also a product out of Google+ but considering GChat (the xmpp version) existed before, it was kind of a step backwards.
I think Google Local Guide also has some parts of Google+, not sure.
But the community is so minuscule that I'm not sure Google even knew it existed. If it had taken off to the same degree among something closer to critical mass, like today's parasocial celebrity communities or mainstream sports, it might've survived.
IMO most of that TTRPG community migrated to Discord, but the invite requirements make discovery horrible, search is terrible, real-time chat is miserable for discussion, and its "forum" features are just threaded chats. The vibe is way worse, it breeds and feeds drama, and the audience that survives it can correspondingly be either less appealing or require more moderation.
Bluesky doesn't solve the same problems as G+ circles, but between feeds and follow/moderation lists, it has a similar vibe of being able to focus the lens on a topic better than Twitter or Threads, and without the overhead and UX gaps of Fediverse.
Touch of genius really.
I mean that morning when Zuck woke up and decided that a Threads a/c would need an Instagram a/c he must have seen on his daily astronomy calendar "Day of self-sabotage".
Facebook is doing the same with Threads. Sure you don't have a default account, but the pestering works, and it is "tying".
But I still think there is a difference with Bluesky and the other big social medias with full customization of how the feed(s) works, third party servers, custom labelers, etc. To me it seems plausible that they actually want to create more of an empowering tool that the users can control.
That will of course not stop users from using ”dumb” feeds. But the users doesn’t have the incitament of Facebook to always produce higher engagement and show more ads.
It is of course also troublesome that we do not know how Bluesky will act down the road to get their ROI.
i wouldn’t say falsely created, but i would say “padded statistics”
threads is beholden to KPIs unlike every other activity pub implementation
their team obviously wants to be successful to continue developing against activity pub
their metrics are akin to a company bragging about how much software they’ve written with the assistance of AI
threads was able to approximate how many instagram users wished they had twitter in the same way intellisense is able to provide auto complete for dot notation; as a magician, i spot the misdirection for investors
They didn't.
While Threads is just forced Instagram users, bsky is a decentralised social network which is not decentralised. Comparing bsky with Threads is anything but a compliment.