NEW IN PIRATE WIRES: The blue place is trapped in a doom loop. Last year, the platform closed a $15M Series A, and it now plans to launch a paid subscription service. But the fact of the matter is that growth on Blu*sky is stalling. Since March 1: • Daily active users are down 35%. • Daily posters are down 30%. • Daily posts are down 24%. • Daily likes are down 46%. Blu*sky’s largest growth spike was on November 18, when daily posters surged to 1.475m in the wake of the election. Today, that number is around 680k. The platform’s core problem is that its growth is powered almost entirely by protest. As @AshleyRindsberg reports for Pirate Wires, an analysis of the network reveals that new user acquisition reliably spikes following political events or policy changes on X — but when they get to Blu*sky, ~80% of those users churn. It’s an erratic growth pattern that, lately, has been trending down. On a deeper level, Blu*sky is an ideological ghetto. Every non-corporate account in its top 100 is strongly aligned with the left. The platform is also now a basecamp for leftwing protest movements, like the anti-Musk campaign, Tesla Takedown. Because political resistance is the platform’s main growth lever, it’s painted itself into a corner. It can’t afford to lose its deep blue identity, but it also can’t afford to perpetually remain a left-wing refugee camp that’s inhospitable to real, scalable, long-term growth. Read the full analysis in Ashley’s piece (threaded below) 👇

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