Really this should be orthogonal to a verification check, IMHO.
Blue check: Enough people are interested in pretending to be me that Twitter has verified this account as being mine. I get a few perks related to managing the immense torrent of bullshit that this level of fame sends my way.
Green star: I like Twitter enough to pay a few bucks to do my part to help keep the servers running, and to pay the programmers and moderators to do their job. I get a few perks like multiple/animated user icons, longer post lengths, and the ability to post offsite links without Twitter's algorithm hiding them.
Got a blue check? Great! You're someone famous! Got a green star? Great! You're helping to keep the site running! Got a blue check AND a green star? Super awesome, you're someone famous who's also helping to keep the site running!
But this does require turning Twitter into a place people are enjoying going to before anyone likes it enough to pay a few bucks, and well, good luck with that, mister "I'm going to eliminate all censorship on Twitter and let Trump back on".
I'm fine with just the one blue check for anyone willing to pay. I'm guessing existing blue checks will be grandfathered in, but maybe not. that would be a great immediate new revenue stream to make all those people start paying or lose their check. In any case, non checked people will most likely be entirely invisible now, which is totally fine. the noise from them is so bad
I’ve yet to see if people will lose their verification if they don’t pay. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep mine, and I’ve been paying for Twitter Blue until now anyway.
Unless you're an apple user, youtube premium has 1 feature that you cannot get through extensions and that is offline play. Everything else is accessible, for free, on every platform save for unjailbroken iphones.
Yeah, "I like this site enough to help keep the servers running" was a much easier sell back when I was giving money to Brad et al to keep Livejournal running.
> Starting today, we’re adding great new features to Twitter Blue, and have more on the way soon.
> Get Twitter Blue for $7.99/month if you sign up now
> Blue checkmark: Power to the people: Your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.
> Availability: Twitter Blue with verification is currently available on iOS in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
I've worked at places that had to implement policies limiting features for a while because scammers would use credit cards that would turn out to be fraudulent. I don't know the details of how they worked it out, but they could sign up, send SPAM via us, and then the account would get shut down a week later (and we'd get a huge hit to our deliverability because of their SPAM).
>I'm not saying that Twitter won't take steps to prevent this. I'm just saying that there are a lot of scams that are worth more than $8/mo.
In this situation it's $8 just to attempt to scam someone. Every time you fail you pay again. It actually should incentivize Twitter to improve their scammer-catching algorithms/systems-- at $8 per offender that's not a bad payout at all.
"$7.99/month if you sign up now": Hey, this price hike (from $4.99 to $7.99) is just the start!
"Blue checkmark: Power to the people": We've heard that there's long been confusion over what qualifies some people to be "verified", and we're solving that problem by making the blue checkmark just mean "this person is giving us money!"
"Half the ads & much better ones": Who wouldn't want to pay for better ads!
"Priority ranking for quality content": Because if you're giving us $8 a month, what you say must be higher-quality than those plebes who aren't!
In short, our best days are absolutely ahead, and we are absolutely not preparing an "Our Incredible Journey" post just, you know, in case! (Seriously, we can't, because we laid off all our writers.)
I think the idea is to encourage all non-bot users to pay for it. Or at least get a big portion of them, kind of like how it’s normal to pay for Spotify or Hulu.
Which doesn't go with the idea of a public square free speech platform. Real public squares don't require you to pay to enter. And actual free speech should be influenced by those who are willing and/or able to pay for the privilege
It's normal to pay for Spotify and Hulu because you get access to stream copyrighted materials monthly for a small fee. It would not be normal to pay for those services just to get a blue checkmark on your profile.
1. For people who post, you will be treated better by the ranking and spam systems. The blue checkmark may be like the “blue bubbles” iMessage thing where it’s not-so-subtly a marker of ingroup status.
2. For readers, you get to see less ads.
I don’t use Twitter much, but I could imagine it being worth it for people who spend a lot of time on the app.
Spammers are usually cycling through accounts rapidly. If they pay, that gets a lot harder. You’d still enforce against spammers who pay the $8, but the requirement to pay will reduce the volume and make the problem more manageable.
I guess it depends on what your definition of spam is. I think it people are paying to be promoted then it is the same as an ad, and to me ads are a form of spam if I don't want to see them.
$8 doesn't sound like the right price either. Most users will not be able to afford this (not that they can't pay it with their saving. It isn't worth it).
Is there still any verification involved or is it just blue check mark for money? Does providing your payment details count as some form of verification and is that information linked to the Twitter user?
This will be an amazing tool for scammers. You get priority comments, you get a blue checkmark to more easily impersonate others, and also LESS ads (amazing lol).
All we wanted is a chonological timeline (without having to rely on tricks) of the tweets & retweets from the people you actively chose to follow, and no ads when you pay. Bonus points if it had restored "save means bookmark for later" instead of being another retweet button.
Instead, we get: it still has ads, even more tracking (for "better ads") and algorithms are still hiding content you chose to follow even if you pay.
I'm honestly already so sick of the media circus around this, and everyone watching breathless from the sidelines with hot takes. Elon is truly a master at focusing millions of eyeballs on himself and everything he does, but I'd be happy if HN didn't have a top level post for every single movement the guy makes.
It's really the intersection of stuff though - he's driving plenty of the attention, but Twitter's also a large and influential company, so changes to their business model, moderation, and staffing are all things that would make the front page of HN even if their CEO was someone less interesting.
I'm feeling burned out on it all as well, but it's not as if each of these moves is some meaningless thing that's being hyped up just because it's Musk. If Facebook started charging $8 for a super-Instagram account, that'd be big news.
It's not as if we get posts for random things about Tesla or SpaceX all the time - it's mostly just for major launches, product or rocket. The recent circus is exceptional because it's so many movements happening so fast.
Agree, though rather than be annoyed I opted to have some fun. Using a browser plugin that automatically changes all occurrences of selected words in a web page I now get a snarky chuckle whenever EM is mentioned. Also works well for craven politicians and narcissistic celebrities.
"Laughter is like shock absorbers. Without it you feel every bump in the road."
He's right up there with Kanye and the Kardashians, et al. I hate that I know who they are and what they're up to because you can't scan the day's news without being informed about their activities.
To be honest, it's really money of Tesla shareholders that is at stake. Sure, Elon will take a hit, because the math is intractable. So this thing will go south, but it's Tesla shareholders that will eat most of the losses, not Elon.
A Twitter spokesperson said they have 238 million mDAU (monetizable daily active Twitter users) as of Q2'2022. That'd be a conversion rate of 6% — not impossible.
I'm not a business expert but in my opinion Twitter would have to offer more compelling services that people would feel inclined to sign up for. A checkmark alone will just get the people that value the checkmark and a 50% reduction in ads. When anyone can get a blue checkmark it will lose some its perceived value.
Perhaps there should be a poll to see how many find the checkmark compelling enough alone to subscribe.
More difficult to bot on iOS? If they're worried that their verification process might have flaws and don't want thousands of fake accounts on day 1 and all the bad press, the cost of the devices and difficulty in jailbreaking is a kind of safety net maybe.
Most of the advertising and bot traffic is in English. This is an attempt to make the spam less lucrative - got to start somewhere. It will roll out globally eventually.
Blue check: Enough people are interested in pretending to be me that Twitter has verified this account as being mine. I get a few perks related to managing the immense torrent of bullshit that this level of fame sends my way.
Green star: I like Twitter enough to pay a few bucks to do my part to help keep the servers running, and to pay the programmers and moderators to do their job. I get a few perks like multiple/animated user icons, longer post lengths, and the ability to post offsite links without Twitter's algorithm hiding them.
Got a blue check? Great! You're someone famous! Got a green star? Great! You're helping to keep the site running! Got a blue check AND a green star? Super awesome, you're someone famous who's also helping to keep the site running!
But this does require turning Twitter into a place people are enjoying going to before anyone likes it enough to pay a few bucks, and well, good luck with that, mister "I'm going to eliminate all censorship on Twitter and let Trump back on".