[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Bluesky is #1 in the U.S. App Store. Is this...
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Ask HN: Bluesky is #1 in the U.S. App Store. Is this a first for
open source?
Author : consumer451
Score : 27 points
Date : 2024-11-13 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago)
| consumer451 wrote:
| Bluesky is growing at around 10 accounts/second as of an hour
| ago.
|
| This has put their iOS app [0] in the top position under free
| apps, [1] in the USA and UK App Stores. The app is MIT licensed
| open source.
|
| Others and myself are wondering, is their #1 position in the iOS
| free app category a first for an open source app? (please note
| that this is all apps, not just social media)
|
| [0] https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app
|
| [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/gHuwrrw
| colesantiago wrote:
| Yes it is.
|
| Bluesky's app and services is open source. With plenty of
| people crossing over to it, reason being because it resembles
| Twitter pre-Musk.
|
| Mastodon is also open source but never held or got even near
| the #1 top spot ever, and I don't think it ever will due to the
| friction of choosing a server.
|
| People nowadays expect familiarity. 'Don't make me think' that
| is why people aren't going to Mastodon.
|
| As for Threads, it isn't open source and are now introducing
| platform decaying features like ads which will make the
| platform worse.
|
| So I can say (at least for now) Bluesky is currently the
| platform of choice right now.
| consumer451 wrote:
| The crazy thing to me is that it's #1 in the general free app
| category, "Top Free Apps," not only the social media
| category.
| tartoran wrote:
| Is that a consistent metric of 10 accounts/second? If that's so
| it's a decent number. Is this a sudden influx of users? Are
| people fleeing away from Mr. Musk?
| consumer451 wrote:
| I just did rough math by looking at this counter [0] over the
| course of 10 minutes. ~10 per second was about 2 hours ago,
| it was around 4 per second around 10AM Eastern time,
| yesterday.
|
| Yes on the Musk factor, it would appear. There have been a
| bunch Bsky mentions in multiple news sources in the US and UK
| in the last couple days. That appears to driving account
| creation.
|
| [0] https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I want to know why too. If they're fleeing musk then why now?
| tartoran wrote:
| The timing is weird if it's for that reason. Maybe it has
| something to do with recent news developments, Id be
| curious to know too.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Related recent news:
| https://pagesix.com/2024/11/13/celebrity-news/jamie-lee-
| curt...
| damnloveless wrote:
| user counter: https://bcounter.nat.vg/
| consumer451 wrote:
| Oh, this is great. I was doing it the hard way. This has an
| accounts per second counter built-in!
| damnloveless wrote:
| natalie is awesome!
|
| if you're on bsky give her a follow!
| ferbivore wrote:
| The license isn't relevant. It's not really "an open source
| app", it's just an app that happens to be open source. Put it
| this way: if, say, Godot became the #1 most popular game
| engine, that would be something for the open source community
| at large to celebrate. With Bluesky, we have absolutely nothing
| to celebrate. If anything, this is terrible news; instead of
| Twitter losing users to a genuinely open platform, they're just
| going to yet another VC-funded functionally proprietary
| service.
| consumer451 wrote:
| My point here is not to get all into the
| fedi/bsky/twitter/threads drama. I am not even talking about
| social media of any kind.
|
| My question is simple and has an objective yes/no answer.
| Prior to this, has any open source app [0] ever been the #1
| app in the US App Store "Top Free Apps" category?
|
| [0] For the sake of this post, let's pretend that an open
| source app is one where the code is freely available,
| forkable, and under MIT license.
| piyuv wrote:
| Stretching the definition of "open source" here
| consumer451 wrote:
| How so? I believe every single line of everything is open
| source, aside from their server-side Discover feed algo. But in
| any case, the question is about the app, which is 100% MIT
| licensed open source code.
| Lionga wrote:
| So everything besides the most important part?
|
| Real "open source" would for me even imply that all data is
| freely accessible but this stops way, way before and should
| not be called open in almost any sense.
|
| Just a VC PR play.
| palata wrote:
| I was never a big user of Twitter, but I joined a Mastodon server
| around 2020. I am still using it regularly, but I honestly find
| it pretty hard to get useful content: it feels like either it's
| random stuff I don't care about, or always the same people I
| follow and don't bring me much.
|
| At first I didn't want to try Bluesky (because of some of the
| founders, I suppose? I don't know, Mastodon seemed more organic),
| but I eventually did. And I actually like their system of
| "custom" algos. I have a few very interesting feeds now
| (international news, national news, ...).
|
| So yeah, positively surprised by Bluesky.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| Sounds like a problem of reaching critical mass.
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(page generated 2024-11-13 23:01 UTC)