As Mark Twain said, there are “lies, damn lies, and statistics”. Or as a professor once said to me, “tell me what you want to be true and I’ll demonstrate statistically that it’s true”.
You can make virtually any case by abusing statistics, and Mashable lately has been doing just that.
Check out this sub-headline stat: “Meta-owned Threads started November with 5 times the daily app users of Bluesky. That number is now down to just 1.5.”
They go on to gush:
The momentum shift has been nothing short of seismic, especially in the wake of the November 5 election. According to Similarweb data reported by the Financial Times, Bluesky’s user base has ballooned by 300 percent since Election Day. Journalists, academics, and companies are fleeing Elon Musk’s chaotic X (formerly Twitter) in droves, and Bluesky is quickly becoming their platform of choice.
There are several abuses of statistics in use here:
- Cherry picking the stat: Is “daily users” in that sub-headline really the right choice? Threads has 275 million users, so obviously if I’m trying to paint Bluesky positively, I’m not going to compare users and would need to find something else where Bluesky doesn’t look like a dwarf.
- Reporting the change as a percentage: The number of pets in my home has grown by 200% over the last 5 years! (Translation: we had a dog, my daughter got a gecko). Saying the user base has “ballooned” by 300 percent sounds impressive but what are the actual numbers?
- Emphasizing a small minority: “Journalists, academics, and companies fleeing” sounds like lot but it’s what…a couple thousand at most? Maybe 10,000 if ever journalist and academic is counted.
- Choosing a time scale: “Since Election Day”…in other words, in the 18 days between the election and that article. How was it over the entire year? Or since?
- Being vague about what’s measured: The “user base” has grown. Is that daily active users? Number of posts? Or just people who have installed the app?
And of course using a lot of $10 adjectives like “ballooning”, “seismic shift”, etc.
But the biggest misuse is moving the goalposts. The idea that Bluesky is more popular than Threads is meaningless. How does it compare to Twitter/X? That’s the target. That’s why Bluesky was created.
And Bluesky is failing badly at that.
The Reality
Here’s a dose of cold water:
Call it 28 million users…against ~500 million for Twitter/X.
You can go down any metric you like and the chart looks the same: a bump in November and regular slide since then.
Here’s another fun stat: 99% of users on Bluesky have 400 followers or less. 400! There are plenty of Twitter/X celebs who have millions. 99.9% of Bluesky users have under 4,000 followers and 99.99% of Bluesky users have under 12,000 followers.
The Best We Can Say is Maybe It’ll Succeed
Bluesky has not gone anywhere. They had a long period where you needed an invite to join, which nerfed signups and subscriber growth. Now it’s completely open, but people aren’t exactly flocking to it.
They flocked to Threads, which genuinely experienced a period of hypergrowth. Bluesky is ticking up a few thousand a day…that’s anemic.
I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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x isn’t going anywhere…if anything it’s only getting stronger.