Adobe’s Bluesky experiment ends in backlash — and reveals a platform in flux

‘I assume you’ll be charging us monthly to read your posts’

Adobe's foray into the fast-growing X alternative Bluesky was met with a frosty reception barely a week after its debut.

The graphic software giant, known for products like Photoshop and Acrobat, faced fierce backlash from users, ultimately leading to the deletion of its initial posts.

In a now-deleted post it made on 8th April, Adobe's message read: "Hey, we're Adobe! We're here to connect with the artists, designers, and storytellers who bring ideas to life."

But in a surprising twist, responses were swift and brutal. One Bluesky user mocked, “I assume you’ll be charging us monthly to read your posts,” a user wrote in what appears to be a reference to Adobe’s Photoshop subscription model, which begins at $23/month for the base tier. Another accused Adobe of promoting “AI-generated art” and told it to “go back to the fascist-owned site”. As reported by Futurism, Adobe’s Photoshop account faced similar attacks, with thousands of critical comments flooding its posts before both accounts scrubbed their content.

For brands, this type of resentful reaction has put question marks on Bluesky's reputation as a "saner" alternative to X, with some arguing the platform's community exhibits hostility reminiscent of the very environment users sought to escape.

Bluesky is growing, but can it handle user hostility?

By early April 2025, Bluesky's user count had climbed to more than 33 million from the 25 million reported in December 2024.

This surge was partly driven by companies and users migrating from X after Elon Musk pitched his tent with Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 US elections. Alongside the impact of the US elections, Bluesky experienced a spike in users when X was briefly banned in Brazil.

This rapid growth has resulted in a rise in moderation issues, largely centred on harassment, trolling and intolerance, according to Engadget. Last December, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the platform also faced multiple complaints about a surge of AI bots following users, posting plagiarised articles, and making automated divisive comments in replies.

Bluesky announced in January that it has expanded its moderation team to over 100 members and implemented more aggressive policies to address impersonation and harmful content. However, these efforts are complicated by Bluesky's decentralised design, which makes scalable moderation challenging.

The Adobe incident spotlights the tension between Bluesky's user-driven ethos and its need for effective moderation. While users celebrate the platform's independence from X's controversies, its growth has introduced familiar problems, including spam, scams, and impersonator accounts, and now raises concerns about its long-term viability as a less hostile alternative.

As the platform evolves, it must balance its user-driven style with moderation to avoid replicating the toxic behaviours that drove many users away from X.