Our Mission Statement

If the original sin of Web 1.0 was the pop-up ad, the original sin of web 2.0 was the algorithmic feed.

"The Algorithm" has corrupted sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. They have metastasized into machines that drive engagement and advertising revenue above all else.

The Algorithm has been the culprit in nearly every internet malady over the past two decades. Invisible optimization strategies have maximized shareholder value while stripping our attentional landscape bare. Producers of content engage in increasingly perverse acts to prove their worth to the algorithm they depend on to survive. Consumers of content unwittingly boil in a froth meant only to capture their attention. We're stuck in corrosive environments that create echo chambers, filter bubbles, and surveillance capitalism.

We have hope, though.

Bluesky may finally break the back of this model.

On Bluesky, anyone can craft and operate their own algorithm, and any user can switch to any algorithm they please. Instead of being inescapably under the supervision of a singular, centralized model operated by the platform, Bluesky delegates this to the community, and lets people explore freely.

If you don't like the algorithms you're subscribed to (via the "custom feed" feature), you can switch them, or even create your own. This imposes a meaningful limit on the level of abusive practices that can take root on the platform - switching is easy! On Twitter, you can only escape these practices by leaving everyone behind. On Bluesky, you simply unsubscribe from that feed. This forces the people operating feeds to respect their audience, and subjects them to constant competition from others that may provide a better experience.

Bluesky's Custom Feeds are the mechanism for breaking the back of abusive, centralized algorithms in social media. Instead of a select few deciding what content you get to see, we all have the power to collectively shape and control our social media experience.

And it's working.

Thousands of feeds are being created by a diverse range of people for a spectrum of niches, interests, and sub-communities. The value and diversity of these feeds cannot be replicated by one centralized algorithm. The democratization of the algorithm brings better content, delivered by people with better incentive structures, on a platform with better governance.

We're hopeful -- however, building feeds is difficult.

To build a feed you have to be an engineer. You have to set up a server that handles billions of records and requests from Bluesky. You have to write code that filters and organizes the right posts for your feed. And when you've done all that, you need to ensure it ever goes down, because if it does? Your feed is dead, and your community is cut off.

This complexity filters out the vast majority of people who would otherwise create amazing feeds for themselves and their communities.

Graze changes this equation.

We give anyone the ability to create sophisticated algorithms and feeds without having to manage a single server or line of code.

In just three weeks we've grown to serve over 35 million posts a day across hundreds of active feeds. We're working with people every day to figure out every possible way support their vision for feeds about video games, The Olympics, Catholicism, housing policy, breaking news, and every post that has the word "Bang!"

We built Graze to make feed-building easy. We provide you the sophisticated building blocks that the big social media companies use - complex filtering logic, deep engagement analytics, custom sorting and algorithmic ranking. You bring your vision for a better way to spend time online.

Custom feeds are the heart and soul of the new social internet. We think we can undo the damage of The Algorithm, and we hope you'll join us on that mission.