Pie In The Sky

In this week's P.O. Box:

Off to Blue Sky?
Stream roundup & Pick ‘Ems
On Tap: DFS After Dark & Week 11 DFS Cram

I was badgered this week by a handful of people to join Bluesky—an upstart social media alternative to X that attracted millions of users this past week in the wake of the election.

Let me say off the rip, I have zero interest in discussing social media platforms through the lens of politics. I’m not sure anything better illustrates the braindead nature of tribalism in politics than caring about where your favorite content creator posts/shares their content. Grow up.

The most compelling aspect of Bluesky to me, though, is an algorithm that doesn’t suppress links. This is an important feature for someone like me who shares links to all of their streams/articles/videos on X.

No social media platform is excited to provide you an offramp to another site, but it’s reached absurd levels on X in the past year. Any post with a link might as well be shadow banned. It’s essentially worthless to share a link these days (although I still do it out of pure habit).

But beyond that, I really have zero interest in adding another micro-blogging platform to my online stack. Over the years, I’ve wound back my social media usage to the point that I use X strictly for utility (promotion + news) and rarely for interacting with others or entertainment (outside of the occasional tilt post on a Sunday afternoon).

Because of this, I just don’t have the desire to flee to a new site only for it to capture whatever market share of my time/attention is still available.

A lot of the other criticisms of X aren’t really relevant to me. I’m fully aware that the “For You” page that serves up a constant firehose of drivel is completely borked, but I don’t interact with the site on that level. Outside of self-promotion, I use it in only two other capacities:

1) I use the “Pro X” deck (R.I.P. Tweetdeck) so I can see news/updates in real time. This is particularly handy for when I’m streaming and can see relevant NFL updates as they break.

2) I have a finely curated list for fantasy football accounts that I use when I write the Fantasy Life newsletter. I write it 5x a week and the list is crucial to helping me keep track of the biggest stories that I might need to write about, as well as interesting links/nuggets to include in our Watercooler section.

Because of this, I’m able to enjoy a decent experience on X. Of course, this approach does require a little discipline (never tweet), some extra work (list curation), and coin (Pro X) to hack together.

I’m not stubborn, though. I capitulated and squatted on my Bluesky account. And if there’s a critical mass on Bluesky that allows me to replicate the real time updates and news curation that I can currently do on X, I’ll happily swap out my minimalistic experience on X for a minimalistic experience on Bluesky.

But until then, I’m good. Please don’t be mad X lovers and Bluesky enjoyers. It’s not you, it’s me.

💎 Week 11 hidden gems (5 DFS sleepers & 3 draft angles). We got five DFS sleepers, a couple pick 'ems, and three angles to attack in Battle Royale drafts. Check it out on the Deposit Kingdom channel.