For now, let’s revel in Bluesky’s promised land and kid ourselves it’ll never get like X

Last week, Bluesky was gaining a million new users daily. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

The fabulous Carol Vorderman got me briefly hooked last week in watching a particular number increase by the second. The number was the user count for the social media site Bluesky, the chosen distraction engine for those who can no longer stomach the toxic inanity of Elon Musk’s X. Most days, the ticker on the screen suggested the number of new Bluesky users had grown by about a million. And, of course, the newbies, inevitably myself included, revelled in the latest online promised land, a place where things would be done differently – with kindness and respect – without quite acknowledging the fact that, as yet, no platform which confuses a venture capitalist’s favourite metrics – scale! reach! influence! – with something that anyone might, say, care about, has yet avoided a descent into banal or shouty extremes.