Elon Musk's First Order Of Business At Twitter Is Making Blue Checks Cost $20 A Month
Elon Musk, fresh off completing his purchase of Twitter, has made one of his first orders of business making the site's infamous "Blue Checks" pay — literally.
According to a report from Platformer and The Verge, Musk's apparent first big idea to get Twitter to generate revenue is to make being verified on the platform a $20/month service. Furthermore, the team in charge of developing the subscription service has until November 7th to deliver, or they're all fired.
Twitter's verification system was implemented in 2009 after baseball manager Tony La Russa sued the company because someone was impersonating him on the platform. Since then, it's become one of the site's more notorious and contentious features.
There is an impression among some on the internet that those with verified accounts are liberals with inflated egos, and nearly any major piece of Twitter discourse will find people (often conservatives) rolling their eyes at the "blue checks" weighing in on whatever controversy is circulating on Twitter that day.
Musk's plan can be seen as a bet that the ego stroke of a blue check will be worth $20 a month to enough people to generate a lucrative revenue stream. However, as the news spread about the new plan, many Twitter users, including some verified users, laughed and expressed they'd gladly let their blue ticks go rather than pay to maintain them. They also joked that paying $20 per month for a little symbol would be very dorky.
Others noted that Musk's strict and tight deadline for the feature could be a recipe for problems. Twitter has historically only delivered new features after months, and sometimes years, of rigorous testing.
That Musk gave a development team a week to develop a subscription service or face dismissal seemed draconian to some and opened up the potential for a rushed, buggy final product.
While the new $20 price tag will almost assuredly result in a mass un-verification on Twitter, some think it will still get Twitter some money. Some have noted that even if 90 percent of currently verified accounts don't opt into the subscription service, if just 10 percent do, Twitter could rake in $7.2 million a month.
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Sumarios
I like it. Big businesses will obviously have no problem paying for a check mark for their accounts because those are just for advertising anyways, but for the holier-than-thou journalists that are having a breakdown over recent events it basically becomes a scarlet letter. It says "I know I said I hate Musk and think twitter is doomed buy I still gave him $20 because that's what my dignity is worth."
Witch Dianna
Same, I just wished he charged more so it pisses them off further.
big thonk
Good. Instead of it being offered only to government propaganda machines, people can literally put their money where their mouth is
Chewybunny
The irony is that they will bitch, and they will moan, and they will hate Elon Musk for this, but 90% of them will gladly pay for it because it gives them that special feeling of "I am better than you."
Gumshoe
I don't think they will. It was special before because it was (at least in theory) only given to people who were notable enough to warrant one. The point was that it was for people who might have impersonator accounts to show which was the real one. If anyone can just buy it for $140 per year, most people won't bother. I'd expect the only ones who will pay for it are the brands and the people who wished they had it before.
Sai
Can't wait to see how it will burn down.
Revic
> The team in charge of implementing the feature has one week to deliver or they're all fired.
Hooray for terrorizing people over whom you have power for no goddamn reason!
Hysteria98
Absolutely nothing about this makes any sense. What the fuck is Musk doing?
big thonk
I'm gonna be that guy but lemme explain it to you this way: it is a certain way to separate the wheat from the chaff, considering how worthless most social media staff are. Either prove you can actually do your job, or get out. And how hard is it [i]really[/i] to program a paywall?
It may seem a draconian solution, but you'll have to admit with how terrible the internet is drastic measures may be the only way to stem the flood of shite. The more you let a infection fester, the more radical of a treatment usually is…
Gumshoe
It's clear from this that you have absolutely no experience in engineering or working in any kind of tech environment. For a site as big as Twitter, this is a huge task. Features way smaller than this are prone to an incredible number of bugs and need to be vigorously tested and debugged. This is not a way to get rid of untalented lumps and keep the great people. What it will do is drive away anyone with experience and high standards for their work who doesn't want to put out untested and unfinished shit, and the only ones who will stay will be the people who are so inexperienced and desparate that they will sleep under their desks and work 7 days a week just to put something out even when it's not going to work.
Gumshoe
He's just looking for excuses to fire a significant number of staff. This way, he can probably make some kind of very thin case that he's doing it "with cause" which he will probably try to use to avoid paying for any kind redundancy or so he won't have to give them notice.
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NTE
i feel nothing for them, most of the twitter checkmarks used them as a status symbol rather than just a verification
ObadiahtheSlim
It's certainly a controversial decision. It might even be a brave one. (see Yes Minister for the difference between the two)
But I can guarantee there will be a lot less "literal whos" on Twitter with blue checkmarks.
Adam
i… don't know about this. what's more likely, a celeb who occasionally tweets spending twenty bucks a month to get a blue tick or johnny journalist at The Free Speaking Advocate Chronicle shelling out to make himself seem important?
Chewybunny
which is why they'll gladly pay for it. $20 a month is too low imo. He can easily make it 50 and have 90% of them pay it.
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