By Those on Twitter who have earned the coveted blue verified checkmark may soon be required to pay to keep it.
According to reports, Elon Musk, Twitter’s new “Chief Twit,” is contemplating adding verification as a feature for the premium Twitter Blue service while quadrupling the membership price. Consumers may pay $20 monthly to maintain their blue checkmark symbol.
Elon Musk, who purchased the social media business in a transaction valued at $44 billion last week, has been said to be among the first to implement substantial changes. According to technology news site Platformer, Twitter is “seriously contemplating” charging verified users $5 per month for the verification badge by making them subscribe to Twitter Blue. Twitter Blue is a premium service that offers additional capabilities.
What are Twitter Blue Plans?
According to Platformer Casey Newton and The Verge, Twitter plans to increase the price of its Blue membership plan from $5 to $20 per month and make it obligatory for verified users under Elon Musk’s leadership. If it goes forward with the idea, authenticated users will have 90 days after launch to sign up for the service or risk losing the blue check mark. Staff involved in the project have been threatened with termination if the adjustments are not made by November 7th.
Platformer predicts that verification will be included in Twitter Blue. However, the CEO of Twitter Inc. has not concluded, and the project might yet be abandoned. It was in June of 2017 that Twitter introduced its first subscription service, Twitter Blue, which allows users to pay a monthly fee in exchange for “exclusive access to premium services,” one of which is the ability to edit their tweets.
Those who haven’t verified yet may be able to buy their way to the top by taking advantage of Twitter’s suggested reforms. Twitter only verifies accounts belonging to “prominently recognized individuals or brands.” If the policy shift is implemented, it’s likely that all Twitter users who are active and can prove their identities will be eligible to become verified. It may be valuable in the battle against fake news and impersonation.
However, a recent revelation from The Verge indicated that the true cost might be more. According to that story, Twitter plans to start charging $19.99 per year for a new Twitter Blue membership, and customers who don’t pay up will have their blue checkmarks removed. The article states that consumers will have 90 days to become subscribers before their blue tick is removed. Workers on the project reportedly have until November 7 to make the necessary adjustments.
Many have expressed displeasure with the move, and many more are unlikely to pay the $20 required to maintain their verified status. However, Twitter users have voiced concerns that the new approach might exacerbate the platform’s bot and spam problems, which Musk despises. A cosmologist and author, Katie Mack, tweeted, “The objective of Twitter verification is that… it’s helpful to verify their assertions are coming from them.” It’s not meant to be worn as a badge of honour but rather to counteract false information.
Currently, users of Twitter Blue may view which articles are already being circulated the most widely throughout their networks, modify their tweets, and upload high-definition (1080p) videos. Because there is a non-zero likelihood that users who pay for Twitter are interested in cryptocurrencies, this feature also allows accounts to use an NFT as their profile image. Nothing about this looks to be financially viable, even with the inclusion of verification.
You may erase a tweet, browse the news without ads, modify a published tweet, sort your bookmarks in folders, pin discussions in your direct messages, submit films up to 10 minutes in length, and more with Twitter Blue, Twitter’s paid premium service. The monthly fee increased from $3 in 2021, when the program started, to $5 in October of that year.
It’s no secret that Musk is set on expanding Twitter’s subscription business. Musk, a millionaire entrepreneur, allegedly predicted that premiums would become a more key revenue source than they have been in May when he first declared his plan to purchase Twitter. Projections for 2028 indicate that they will provide $10 billion in yearly income, with advertising generating an additional $12 billion. This would mean that by 2028, subscriptions would account for 55% of revenue, up from 45% in 2020, demonstrating Musk’s confidence in its long-term viability as a revenue source.
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