Bluesky has a new permanent CEO, and his pitch is bigger than simply building a nicer Twitter alternative. Toni Schneider, the former Automattic CEO who helped scale WordPress.com, now wants Bluesky to become the front door to a much wider open social web.
That is a tricky assignment. Bluesky is both a consumer app with millions of users and the main company pushing AT Protocol, the decentralized social networking technology underneath it. Those two missions do not always move at the same speed. Users want a polished app. Developers want a flexible protocol. Schneider has to serve both without turning Bluesky into another closed platform.
Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider Sees AT Protocol as the Future of Social Media
Schneider describes Bluesky as two things: the familiar text-first social app and the open protocol powering a growing ecosystem of third-party apps known as the ATmosphere. More than a thousand apps are already being built around AT Protocol, including publishing tools, alternative social clients, and community-focused projects.
His long-term goal is ambitious: a billion people using AT Protocol over the next decade. The idea is not that everyone must use the Bluesky app forever. Instead, Bluesky could become an on-ramp to a network where users own their identity, move between services, and interact across apps without starting from scratch each time.
Why Bluesky Is Betting on Private Communities
One of the biggest changes coming to AT Protocol is support for private data. Right now, most of the ATmosphere is public by design. That works well for a Twitter-style feed, but it limits what developers can build. Private groups, membership spaces, team networks, and smaller Reddit-like communities all need data that is not visible to the entire internet.
Schneider says private data is one of the most requested features from developers. It also gives Bluesky a way to grow without forcing every conversation into one giant public square. The app already has custom feeds like BookSky and AstroSky, where users gather around shared interests. Private communities would make that behavior more formal, more flexible, and potentially more useful.
Bluesky Does Not Want to Become TikTok
While Facebook, Instagram, X, and even other legacy platforms keep chasing TikTok-style video feeds, Schneider sounds comfortable keeping Bluesky text-first. His argument is simple: if someone wants to build the TikTok of AT Protocol, they should. Bluesky does not need to become every format at once.
That does not mean video, games, newsletters, or long-form posts are locked out. Schneider points to Standard Site, a format supported by tools like Leaflet, Pckt, Offprint, and WordPress, as an example of how outside content can appear naturally inside Bluesky. The app can surface a link, preview, or post, then send people to the original source rather than trapping everything inside its own feed.
Can Bluesky Escape Its Progressive Bubble Reputation?
Bluesky’s consumer brand has a perception problem. To many political observers, it is known as a progressive alternative to X, while X has moved further toward right-wing discourse and algorithmic chaos. Schneider does not deny the reputation, but he wants Bluesky to outgrow it.
Sports is one area where the company has already pushed for broader appeal, bringing in leagues, writers, and live conversation around games. The same approach could apply to entertainment, science, local news, hobbies, and private interest groups. Schneider’s goal is not to erase the political community that helped Bluesky grow, but to make sure the app is not defined by only one crowd.
How Bluesky Plans to Make Money Without Selling Out
Bluesky still needs a business model. Schneider says monetization will begin soon, but he is not interested in a model that only benefits the main app. Instead, he wants revenue systems that work across the ATmosphere.
One likely path sounds similar to affiliate-style monetization. If Bluesky helps a publisher, creator, or business gain a paying customer, Bluesky could take a percentage of the transaction it helped enable. Schneider also says the company is not pursuing crypto-based monetization, which should calm anyone worried about token schemes being bolted onto the network.
The hard part is incentives. Ads pushed older social networks toward engagement bait, outrage, and locked-down feeds. Bluesky’s challenge is to make money while staying open, portable, and useful to publishers and users alike.
The Big Question for Decentralized Social Media
Schneider wants Bluesky to become one player among many, not the permanent owner of the standard. The company is working to hand parts of AT Protocol governance to outside bodies, including the IETF and a separate nonprofit structure for identity infrastructure.
If that works, Bluesky could become something rare: a social app that helps build a network bigger than itself. If it fails, it risks becoming just another platform with open-web branding. Schneider’s bet is that users, developers, publishers, and communities are ready for a social internet that feels less like a casino and more like the web people actually wanted.
Tags: #Bluesky #ATProtocol #DecentralizedSocialMedia #OpenWeb #SocialMediaNews
About the Author
