> They don’t seem to offer anything new/different other than moderation

Pretty wildly obviously critically incorrect statement right there!

It's still early days, but BlueSky is "protocols not platforms." So there's lots of extensibility baked in.

There's already a variety of custom feeds available. Which in short lets us opt in to whatever algorithms we would like. I love my Quiet Posters feed, which emphasizes folks who aren't super active, who I would otherwise miss.

The default view is a timeline, which is so much better than the disgusting engagement farming shallow or demented shit that floods Threads and X. So the default view is much better, much less polluted with awful garbage, and I have the ability to control what I see, what algorithms I would want to opt in to.

There's a variety of different clients available, which is a nice option for power users and those trying to organize the many flows and feeds they want to keep tabs on.

Everyone else is making links harder to engage with or algorithmically de-prioritizng them. BlueSky claims they "love the open web" and don't do any of that gross entrapping.

The "protocols not platforms" ethos here allows new stuff to get built around and on top of Bluesky. Early days, but there's a bunch of projects listed on for example https://github.com/fishttp/awesome-bluesky . Everything else is run top down by awful sterile controlling corporate interests, but BlueSky has that emerging new possibilities potentiation going strong, by appealing to developers, asking them to build stuff. Here's their latest call for projects... You just don't see that sort of stuff anywhere except BlueSky anymore. https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/3049