Mehul Reuben DasNov 01, 2022 13:46:51 IST
One of Elon Musk’s initial plans for Twitter was to ensure that at least half of Twitter’s revenues came from subscriptions. To that effect, Twitter planned that they would start charging $20 per month from users for their verified badge, or the Blue Tick. Basically, this mean that anyone who wanted to get a blue tick next to their name on Twitter could do so, by buying the privilege.
Many Twitter users pointed out that they would rather leave Twitter, rather than pay $20 a month for their verified badges. Elon Musk, therefore, is considering pricing it at $8 a month.
Existing verified account holders had 90 days to enrol into the programme, after which, the;r verified status would be taken away. Naturally, this did not sit well with a number of users, many of whom voiced their opinions on the platform.
Multibillionaire tech bro has let his big mouth and ego trap him into overpaying by 3x to buy a problematic platform in the worst deal of all time, and now he wants to charge $240/year (N192k) to keep a blue tick on verified user profiles.
LOL pls take ithttps://t.co/Sqrx5chZJy
— David Hundeyin (@DavidHundeyin) October 31, 2022
Hey Elon, How exactly “the bird is freed” if u charge to keep a blue tick? Free speech needs to be free .@elonmusk #TwitterBlue
— Kasturi Shankar (@KasthuriShankar) October 31, 2022
Twitter Blue Tick: $20 a month
Youtube Premium:$11.99 a month
Choice is yours
— Cataleya
(@catale7a) October 31, 2022
Blue tick on twitter is signifier of clout.
Those with clout will lose their clout if they appear to be paying for this vanity badge.
Those with no clout will buy and signal it and try to appear important.
End result : chaos. But maybe that’s what the end goal is.
— Kunal Shah (@kunalb11) November 1, 2022
I would pay $10,000 just to continue to be verified for three more seconds on Twitter, the most important place on the planet
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 31, 2022
The Elon Musk $20 a month for a blue tick idea is one that is so bad, it has the power to destroy Twitter on its own. One, attaching a monetary value to the blue tick destroys its desirability completely. It’s like giving out Olympic gold medals to the highest bidder.
— Nick Tyrone (@NicholasTyrone) October 31, 2022
I imagine if Twitter had charged users with blue ticks in the beginning, many would’ve gone for it. But who wants to pay $20 a month to be trolled, which is what Twitter has become for many verified people
— Charlie Condou (@Charliecondou) November 1, 2022
Being verified was fun while it lasted. Not a chance I’m paying $20 a month for twitter blue just to keep the blue tick.
— Jack Skellington
(@J4CKMULL) October 31, 2022
One of Twitters most prolific users, author Stephen King took to Twitter and completely decimated the idea, saying that if this ideas was indeed implemented, he would leave the platform.
$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) October 31, 2022
For a change, Elon Musk took this issue seriously, and is perhaps reconsidering the pricing of Twitter Blue subscriptions.
He replied to King, asking if $8 a month sounds reasonable. Musk believes that relying on advertisers isn’t entirely plausible and that they needed other sources of revenue.
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Ever since Musk took over Twitter, there has been whispers that several prominent advertisers would leave the platform. This is because there has been a lot of speculation that the platform would allow some extremely controversial figures who had their accounts suspended, back on to the platform. Addressing such fears, Musk had penned a note dedicated to the advertisers on the platform, on why exactly he bought Twitter.
Musk wanted to expand the Twitter Blue subscription programme and get more users to start paying for certain features on the platform. Twitter Blue, as a service allows subscribers to try out new features before they are made available to the public. Twitter Blue subscribers also get access to certain exclusive features, the most prominent of which, is the ability to edit Tweets.
Musk’s idea was to add the Blue Tick verified badge to the Twitter Blue subscription and to increase the subscription price up from $4.99 a month to $19.99 a month, in the hopes that more and more people would get the new and revamped Twitter Blue package, in order to get the verified badge. However, if the reaction of Twitter users is anything to go by, this certainly has backfired.
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