Bluesky wants to make it easier to buy, sell, and fundraise on the network

Schneider said he understands that users can leave Bluesky for another platform if the company introduces features or changes they dislike, a reality that he said keeps the leadership team accountable as it prepares to introduce monetization in the coming months.

The executives argued that advertising isn’t the only viable business model for a social network.

“I think there’s a story around monetization that feels like advertising is the inevitable thing we have to do that will ruin the network,” Wang said. “What was really promising about having Toni join us is he built at WordPress Automatic a $10 billion business where a billion of it goes back to the parent company and the rest of it goes to the ecosystem.”

Wang also pointed to Bluesky’s status as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), which she said puts the company’s mission at the center of its business strategy.

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“Yes, we need to make money, but because of our infrastructure, we cannot lock people in,” Wang said. “And so the thing that really matters for us is the people who are creating value on the networks these days are the ones who are getting the value that is coming in or the money that’s coming in. And I kind of think of it as like feudal society where we’re working for a few landlords and they dictate everything, and then we have to pay up our dues as tariffs.”

Bluesky aims to give users ownership of their digital identities and control over their networks while creating a more open internet where value and revenue can flow directly to the people who generate them.

“First, we’ll start with payments, but I think it’s about disrupting the actual infrastructure layer, which is what we’re doing, and not just building another app,” Wang said.