• Bluesky has announced that it is doing away with its waitlist and allowing anyone to join the decentralised social media platform.
• It opened in beta last year and recently surpassed the 3 million user mark.
• Later this month Bluesky will an experimental early version of federation, which is a feature that allows for enhanced customisation.

Bluesky, the social media platform spun up by former Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has removed its waitlist and will now allow anyone to join.

The platform first started gaining traction last year as people began looking for alternatives to Twitter (now X), and in September of last year amassed one million followers. In only a few months since then, it has passed the 3 million user mark, and is no longer invite-only.

“Bluesky is building an open social network where anyone can contribute, while still providing an easy-to-use experience for users. For the past year, we used invite codes to help us manage growth while we built features like moderation tooling, custom feeds, and more. Now, we’re ready for anyone to join,” the team behind the platform wrote in a blog post.

Billed as a decentralised social media platform that offers its users greater control, as it looks to distinguish itself from the other data grabbing and hoarding options out there.

“We really believe that the future of social is, and should be, open and decentralized. This is something that we think is good for the public conversation overall,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber told Engadget of its plans.

“The protocol is like an API that’s permanently open. And that means that developer creativity can kind of go wild,” the CEO added.

Sticking with that mantra of controlling your social media experience freely, Bluesky will be rolling out a feature later this month, although a precise date has not been mentioned regarding its arrival.

“This month, we’ll be rolling out an experimental early version of ‘federation,’ or the feature that makes the network so open and customizable. On Bluesky, you’ll have the freedom to choose (and the right to leave) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships can go with you,” the blog post continued.

Precisely how open the platform can remain now that anyone can join remains to be seen, but there are certainly plenty of people hankering for a viable alternative to X.

[Image – Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash]