Bluesky skyrockets as Elon Musk plans to charge X users

Social network Bluesky experienced a significant increase in users after Elon Musk announced plans to introduce a monthly fee for X users.

Musk's decision to introduce a subscription fee was announced during a live event on September 18, where he cited the need to fight bots on the platform. However, this news did not please X users, which led to an increase in the number of Bluesky users.

An analysis of Bluesky's web traffic and mobile app usage reveals a surge in daily active users after Musk's announcement. Bluesky witnessed 53,585 new sign-ups by the end of September 19, accounting for 5% of its user base, which stands at around 1.13 million accounts.

According to analytics firm Similarweb, Bluesky's Android app recorded half a million daily active users on September 18, marking a 20.6% increase from the previous day.

Bluesky's web traffic also experienced a significant boost, with over 1 million daily visitors on September 19.

Interestingly, Bluesky appears to benefit from X's struggles, whereas other Twitter rivals like Instagram Threads or Mastodon do not experience the same level of growth during similar incidents.

Despite remaining invite-only, Bluesky's user base has now surpassed 1 million. However, X still boasts a much larger user base, with 550 million monthly active users, making it a formidable competitor in the microblogging space.