Adobe deletes Bluesky posts after backlash

This was fascinating to see unfold. What if there was a social network that had taste and rejected things that suck?

Is it a failure of Bluesky to never become the global town square, if it means being a place where a brand can't find it a safe space to promote itself?

Can a social network thread the needle of having enough traffic to be worthwhile but not so much as to attract the Eternal September?

The problem is the microblogging format. No microblogging site can be a good town square. It’s not designed for discussion. It’s designed to allow people to shout into the void, hoping that someone hears them, so that they feel for a moment that their lives have meaning.

Maybe a better question is whether we even need a global town square. I've had Twitter and Bluesky and the difference between them and a real town square is that you're always performing publically to an audience you can't possibly know. I've found far more rewarding relationships posting on niche forums and even subreddits because you get a sense of the people who use and administrate them, and you're safe in the knowledge you can't easily find virality.

I agree, it's just that the town square will exist regardless because of the billions of people and the propensity of most of them to gravitate to the most mainstream option. It feels ideal that that's quarantined on Twitter so the more niche spaces stay high quality.

>Is it a failure of Bluesky to never become the global town square,

No, because that's an oxymoron. There is no such thing because a precondition for a town square (which in reality is a community of people, not a place) is that there exists shared set of values, context and conduct between its members. The state of nature on a global platform, just like in a megacity is to be an anonymous, atomized individual who ideas or products can be sold to.

The town square is the mainstream's niche.