I use social media (outside of friends) like reading or watching news. Bluesky is a newspaper. TT/Insta/YT are tv. But I find vanishingly little engagement on here. I think people setting replies to only those you follow and tightly curating their followers stifles discussion & audience build.
It sort of feels like you're in a vast room with Speakers Corner at one end, and then a bunch of huddled cliques that you can listen to but not interact with.
On X I could post & get a convo going immediately. I've been here since the first months & it's definitely improved, particularly with the US Xodus. But the weird thing here is I can post & get zero engagement- it's like you don't even exist in the algo- that makes it unlike any other SM app I use.
The Bsky algo is sluggish, that's true. (Threads has the opposite issue in that it's too responsive.) And I agree with what you said about people limiting replies—it seems counterintuitive for social media. Bsky reminds me in a way of Google+, which no one seemed to know quite what to do with it.
That's true about Threads although in the beginning it was a relaxed, supportive place stuffed full of creatives, particularly photographers & artists exiled from Insta when it aggressively shifted gears into reels. I do think the overly tight curation here exacerbates the echo chamber effect.
Here the curation is personal. Each user is and makes their own algorithm which is intentional in Bluesky design. There's no echo chamber. If you're not getting engagement you probably need to adjust to what works here
Also I don't need to adjust; like anyone else I post what I want when and where I want. Engagement for those of us with few followers is extremely low compared to other apps, whether you post frequently or not. It's a noticeable difference.
Have fun with that!
Clearly I understand the curation is personal, but if people you follow restrict their discourse on a topic to only people they follow, any discussion will naturally be largely limited to people who agree with them. This encourages the echo chamber effect.