Ads are coming to Bluesky down the road, CEO hints

Bluesky CEO, Jay Graber, hinted that we may see ads on the platform. That is not really surprising in any way, shape or form. Ads are common on social media networks, so… it was only a matter of time.

Ads are coming to Bluesky, it seems, but not yet

What exactly happened? Well, the company’s CEO talked to TechCrunch, and said that Bluesky is already getting attention from new investors following $15 million dollars in investments. She also hinted at some potential revenue streams for the platform.

She mentioned social media subscriptions, a marketplace of algorithms, and selling domain names. She promised not to “enshittify” the platform with ads, but did not rule them out as a source of revenue.

Graber was directly asked whether Bluesky will stay free of advertisers and she said “I don’t think that’s necessarily true”, while adding the following: “I think the ways we would explore advertising if we did, would be much more user intent-driven”.

She also said that the company wants to keep its “incentives aligned with users and make sure that we’re not turning into a model where the user’s attention is the product”. She does not want to replicate the mistakes of other social media networks.

It would seem that Graber realizes that excessive ads implemented in the wrong way could harm Bluesky. Needless to say, that’s a good thing. She also added that she’s a “digital rights activist”, and that “people need to be able to control the social networks they communicate on because they’ve become really vital structures. I just think it’s necessary to be done”.

Bluesky’s CEO shut down AI licensing deals as part of a revenue stream for the company

While ads may be a part of the equation in the future, Bluesky’s CEO did shut down AI licensing deals as part of a revenue stream. As a reminder, Bluesky already promised not to train generative AI on your posts.

Bluesky has seen considerable growth lately, as some people are looking for alternatives to X. The company’s monthly active user pool grew from 20 to 24 million in only two weeks.