The Elon Musk era at Twitter is officially getting underway and it’s safe to say that he isn’t wasting any time shaking things up.
Announced via some recent tweets from Musk himself, it looks like the billionaire is planning to make verification ticks for celebs a thing of the past, and will opt to charge users to access the feature instead.
“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
I mean, only allowing people who have a certain level of disposable income isn’t the way that we would tackle uniting large groups of users, but hey, the man paid good money to make decisions like this so we guess he can do what he wants!
So what will the $8-a-month subscription to Twitter Blue get you?
More than just a tick, apparently.
Users who opt-in to Twitter Blue will also have access to:
- Priority in replies, mentions and search
- Ability to post long video and audio
- Half as many ads
- Paywall bypass for selected publishers
It seems clear that this is Musk’s first major attempt at lowering advertising levels on Twitter but still generate adequate revenue to stay alive and earn back some of the causal $44 Billion he spent on the platform.
Another benefit of this for Elon is that it is a step in the right direction when it comes to eliminating bots from the platform, which was almost a deal breaker during the acquisition.
Enticing users to pay for the verification tick will be tempting for most, but simply impossible for anyone running bot farms, making it much easier for users to recognise who is real and who isnt.
So, a verification tick might be coming to your account sooner than you could have imagined, albeit slightly less satisfying than earning one for your fame.
There is no official launch of this initiative, it is also not entirely confirmed so may no happen at all, but this one is definitely worth keeping an eye on if you are interested in verifying your account.
Welcome to the Musk era everybody - it's gonna be a wild ride.
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