X, Bluesky, Threads: Why short message services are becoming increasingly boring

The social media world used to be fairly straightforward. Every type of content and exchange had its own place: Influencers flocked to Instagram, TikTok, or Twitch, friends on Facebook, and major political issues were debated on the short message service Twitter.

While the network was never a mass phenomenon in Germany, heads of state around the world have always used the service as a mouthpiece for their own interests, as have journalists, entrepreneurs, and online activists. Discussions and even the most outspoken theses published on Twitter often found their way into political debates.

Today, the situation is far more complicated: Since tech billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform in the fall of 2022, Twitter (now called X) has lost a large portion of its user base. And numerous alternatives have been vying for users' favor since then. Recent studies shed light on how successful this is—and how it's changing the culture of online debate.

The industry association Bitkom recently examined the current sentiment surrounding Elon Musk's X service from a corporate perspective in a representative survey . According to the survey of 602 companies from all industries with 20 or more employees, it's clear: Many are now avoiding the platform—and Musk himself has a large part to play in this.

According to the survey, 58 percent of the companies surveyed are now publishing fewer posts on X or have stopped posting altogether. 32 percent are posting at the same volume as before, while only three percent have increased their posting or only started doing so after Musk's takeover. Overall, according to Bitkom, only 27 percent of the companies surveyed are still using X – compared to 32 percent in October 2023.

Many German companies have also reduced their financial commitment: 51 percent now place fewer or no paid ads on X (2023: 26 percent). 63 percent even consider Musk, who was a Trump advisor for a time, to be dangerous. 74 percent believe that people with as much influence on social media as Musk should not hold political office. "Many companies distance themselves when someone simultaneously combines massive economic, political, and media power," says Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder, commenting on the results.

It is noticeable that the lack of engagement on X is now being compensated for by other platforms. According to a recent analysis by the web analytics company Similarweb, X still has 132 million daily active users, making it the most popular short message service. However, growth declined by 15.2 percent year-on-year.

This is particularly pleasing for Meta Corporation's X clone Threads. In June 2025, the company recorded 115 million daily active users on its mobile app for iOS and Android, representing a growth of 127.8 percent over the previous year. This puts Threads just behind X. The service launched in summer 2023, and the network has also been available in the EU since December 2023.

The increasing activity can also be observed by looking at the network. A small but active community has formed on Threads in German-speaking countries, although it differs from the previous Twitter user base. Posts that become successful on the network are often less political – even politicians and the media are not yet fully represented on the platform. Instead, memes and short videos are frequently circulating – and influencers who may have previously had nothing to do with Twitter have also discovered the platform as a distribution channel.

Anyone entering an influencer's name on TikTok or Instagram will find dozens of fake profiles. While the platforms take little action against this, criminals exploit the vulnerability to commit serious fraud. A lawyer now wants to legally compel TikTok to take action.

However, the meta-platform Threads isn't the only short message service positioning itself as an X alternative. The Bluesky platform also experienced record-breaking registration numbers at times. The service is a network with a decentralized infrastructure that emerged from a Twitter side project and was then transformed into a separate company. The underlying AT protocol can also be used by other developers to develop their own networks that can then communicate with each other.

After a brief period of hype, however, it can also be seen that the great euphoria surrounding the decentralized X alternative has died down somewhat. According to figures from Similarweb, the network grew by a remarkable 372.5 percent year-on-year in June, but the number of global daily active users is only 4.1 million – a fraction of the numbers for X and Threads. Bluesky claims to have a total of 37 million registered users at this time. Other statistics also reflect this trend: According to Jaz's Bluesky Index , which provides statistics on Bluesky activity and engagement, posts and interactions on the website are often lower than during the platform's peak in November of last year, when Bluesky experienced a surge in popularity following the results of the US presidential election.

The German network Mastodon, part of the decentralized Fediverse and based on the Activitypub protocol, plays an even smaller role. While there are no comparable growth figures for the platform, last fall the network had a total user base of 15 million – making it a dwarf compared to the other services.

The figures are certainly interesting, because they show that internet users around the world continue to prefer the platforms of tech billionaires, rather than decentralized alternatives. The events of the past few months have apparently not changed this.

After taking over Twitter in the fall of 2022, Elon Musk transformed Twitter into a network where, in addition to disinformation and conspiracy theories, hateful content is rampant. With the help of the platform, the billionaire even worked his way up to become an advisor to the new US president. Nevertheless, X appears to remain an important communications platform, especially in international political exchange: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz still maintains an active account on X, as do his Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and many federal ministries.

The fact that Meta's new competitor, Threads, is booming is also at least remarkable: While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially positioned himself as a counterpoint to the unpredictable tech billionaire Musk, at one point even mooting a possible cage fight with his competitor , the Meta CEO has now also clearly sided with Donald Trump . A political commitment that, however, seems to bother users little.

The reason alternatives like Bluesky or Mastodon haven't really taken off yet could be their homogenous user base. Bluesky and Mastodon attract many users who value the non-commercial, decentralized approach. Politicians, journalists, and activists who no longer want to support Musk and his Platform X also post there. Meanwhile, Mastodon boasts many online activists and representatives from the IT industry. The respective user bases are therefore very much in agreement in their stance.

Many voices from the conservative and right-wing camp, however, have not followed suit and continue to post on Platform X to this day. Debates on the networks therefore often remain in their own sphere, which is likely to make them less interesting for a wider audience.

The study "Politics and Polarization on Bluesky" by the University of Zurich and Finland's Aalto University recently examined the state of political discourse and polarization on Bluesky. It also concluded that discussions on the platform are typically dominated by a politically homogeneous user base. According to the researchers, this development could also symbolize the fragmentation of online space.

"Instead of deeply divided groups meeting on a single platform, we may see the emergence of discrete online spaces like Truth Social or (...) Twitter/X, where users largely agree on political issues. In this scenario, the digital platforms themselves become more politically homogeneous, each serving relatively like-minded communities," the authors write.

As a result, conflict between opposing views is decreasing – not because surrounding polarization has decreased, but because people with different political views are increasingly being compartmentalized into separate, self-reinforcing digital environments.

This means that while alternatives to Musk's Platform X now exist and are becoming increasingly popular, they have little in common with the "old Twitter," which has sparked some widely discussed debates.