It’s Primetime for Twitter Clones, But Are They Ready?

It’s officially Twitter clone season following Elon’s latest in his quest to destroy $44 billion in market cap and take down a once-beloved platform.

Musk’s announced rate-limit directly leads to people spend less time on the platform, discourages engagement, and severely handicaps new CEO Linda Yaccarino’s efforts to breathe life into the Twitter ad business. In other words, it’s a massive miscalculation by Musk that jeopardizes the platform’s very existence.

That’s good news for the creators of Twitter clones like BlueSky, T2, and Post. Activity certainly increased on all of those, across the board, following Musk’s announcement. T2 was my personal go-to.

It’s not good news for users who just want to check in on their favorite news sources, sports highlights, and funny accounts. For those who have been hesitant about leaving Twitter, a rate-limit could be the last straw and it isn’t totally clear where to go.

My personal use of Twitter peaks during live events like Red Sox games and news events. (I’m not alone — this may be the #1 use-case as Twitter is widely regarded as the second screen.) And over the course of a two or three hour event, I might view more than 10,000 tweets which means even if I paid for Twitter Blue, I’d be out of luck. I couldn’t even make it through a minor news story (Elon’s announcement of the rate-limit) without hitting my 600 (or 800) tweet rate-limit. It took just a few minutes.

Twitter isn’t going to work as the second screen anymore (even if Musk insists the limit is temporary. I just don’t believe him). And though some of these new platforms are promising, it’s not clear if any are prepared to seize the opportunity.

T2 is very good but it lacks a mobile app. Bluesky is fine but has some usability issues. And neither of these have attracted sports Twitter — in fact, there seems there simply isn’t a new home for sports Twitter at all.

Is the answer Meta’s rumored decentralized Twitter clone? Only Elon Musk could drive me to wonder if Mark Zuckerberg is the hero we need.

Andrew J. Chapin is a product discovery specialist and writer who focuses on the intersection of media and commerce.