Twitter to Charge $20 a Month for Verified Accounts, Reports Suggest

[JM]

I think both Twitr and Musk will loose from his take over.

Musk is a dominating personality and Twitr needs a collegial team to function, particularly in regard to moderation rules.

By the time he realises this, Twitr will have lost users and the share price will be devalued from his buy out price. Loose loose.

Will the damage to Twitter be fatal ? Sad to contemplate as Twitter is the only global “town square” we have.

No, there’s Truth and Parlor.

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[Apple_Jacks]

I figured there would be a bunch of comments on this one. There's a lot of unverified information without context in this "report". I didn't think this many poor people would criticize the business acumen of the richest man on the planet at 8AM on a Monday, but here we are.

Sure are a lot of self-proclaimed Wharton School alums on MacRumors today.

 

[Aypol]

Objectively, before Musk ever got involved, "the website" was worth $30B, determined by all the participants in the market. That's how or how little importance it was, expressed by numbers, not your personal opinion.

It doesn’t matter. It’s a useless website. It’s as unreal as FB losing 200 billion in a week. It’s all fake.

 

[jmgregory1]

The apple community pays $1000 for a phone every year or two ….

True, but you can run a business on an iPhone. It might be different if Twitter had reporters and writers developing stories, like a newspaper or news channel, where your monthly subscription was helping fund the work, but to just get your Twitter handle promoted for $240 a year seems like a foolish expense. Of course I could be wrong and the promotion may indeed generate a sufficient return for some people or businesses. It’s just not likely going to be huge numbers of the general Twitter user base paying the price.

 

[Aypol]

I figured there would be a bunch of comments on this one. There's a lot of unverified information without context in this "report". I didn't think this many poor people would criticize the business acumen of the richest man on the planet at 8AM on a Monday, but here we are.

Sure are a lot of self-proclaimed Wharton School alums on MacRumors today.

Is this performance art?

 

[Sausage.Biscuit]

Why don‘t charge them $20 per Tweet?

$1 per Tweet, $2 to edit one. $3 to delete one.

 

[contacos]

Yes what does the blue mark get you other than verified? And show that you have $240/yr to spend on that. Even the middle Apple One is close to that price, and you actually get something useful for that

Twitter isn’t only used by you and me 🤦🏽‍♂️ verification status helps to … well verify a source and to make sure you are actually following the correct news account for example and not just a troll account spreading fake news in the name of news or reporter xy.

 

[MRrainer]

At least, that should curb account farming.

 

[compwiz1202]

Will it be run on ios? 😱

Definitely will have a sub, that if unpaid, your car suddenly stalls and can't be restarted until you pay

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

The Framing of that story sounds sus. To make Musk look worse. When this makes sense to go along with any other platform that uses a paywall to weed out people who are not genuine people or bots etc. Paywalls make it so more serious people that want to use the platform as their whatever. Vs just open free invites any troll. And I imagine that's the main reason.

 

[tfresquezdxs]

The guy who can tweet about crypto and effect its value has no business owning the very platform that he puts those tweets up on.

 

[compwiz1202]

First, you don't know how exactly verification will be implemented, nobody does. And you think at 20 bucks (or more depending on subscription model) per bot that is a sustainable system? Also, its' not like a purchased blue checkmark is somehow the mark of a wise, important person (that was actually what the weird approved-elite-only model of the past implied!). If anything, this takes power away from the blue checkmark. I see no danger at all in this move.

$20/mo can be made back tons of by a good scammer. You know enough people won't even check or know to check for verified.

 

[compwiz1202]

I thought the point of verification was to prove a famous person, politician, journalist was who they say they are and not a stan account/imposter; not that what they said carried more weight.

Well yea it just means it's the same person. So if people find them credible, they know they always are, and if they aren't, they're now. Now the question is if they spread crap or do illegal stuff, will there be consequences?

 

[webkit]

Does anyone know how many users have the infamous blue checkmark?

I believe there are around 350,000 to 400,000 "Verified" blue check accounts.

 

[hagjohn]

I don’t see the value in spending that sort of money on the platform. Better to invest in a grass roots social network rather than this manufactured and re-engineered garbage.

Twitter has always been a garbage platform and it still remains so. The fact that it has become a favorite of the press / media just exemplifies their blatant laziness. (As the platform began as a short message service when text messaging, SMS, was already WELL ESTABLISHED.)

I genuinely hope this is the beginning of the end of Twitter, as we know it. (Though who knows if what rises from the ashes is any better?). LOL

A grass roots social network will be just as toxic because being an $#@hole is the in thing at the moment with a lot of people.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

At the moment I have two different accounts, so that I still have access to Twitter when one account is banned, which happens very easily.

 

[MacRumorUser78]

It rather looks like a potentially company-killing policy.

We can only hope.

 

[webkit]

I never understood why someone would want a blue check mark that verifies him as the owner of an account. That verification means that Twitter can prove that you own that account, because they have a copy of your ID, passport or driver's license. So you are legally responsible for all of your content, while people with an unverified account can always say "That is not really me!". I am not just talking about serious crimes, but also simple copyright violations. Posting a photo for example without approval of the copyright holder can get you into serious legal trouble.

And even if you do not post anything controversial, you might not want all your tweets to be connected to your real life person. If I apply for a new job, I do not want my potential employer to read all my tweets. That could cause a kind of self censorship in your head. Should you really tweet that you like good red wine or may people think that you are an alcoholic?

The blue checkmark people are also very often the ones that I am not interested in anyway. So I would love to have an option to block all people with a blue checkmark at once.

The verified accounts are primarily used by companies and public figures who don't want their account mistaken for fake accounts using their name especially if the fake accounts are posting undesirable or inappropriate tweets. The blue check is supposed to verify that the account is authentic which makes it more likely to get followers, attention, publicity, etc. which is what the account holder is looking for.

 

[webkit]

One of Musk's complaints about Twitter has been that too many "Verified" accounts are not active enough on the platform. Perhaps he feels that if they have to pay for the service, they will use it more which will also drive more usage and interest from others.

 

[tubular]

$20/mo can be made back tons of by a good scammer. You know enough people won't even check or know to check for verified.

And Putin’s GRU won’t have any trouble scraping up the $20 for hundreds and hundreds of bot accounts ready to tell you that Ukrainian civilians deserve to be bombed to hell.

 

[usagora]

Wow! That sounds quite greedy! And within hours of joining the company too! I’m sure it makes economic sense but at least lead with some positive changes?

Huh? $240 a year is dirt cheap for a person or business who uses Twitter for promotion.

And before you say it, duh, obviously $0.00 is cheaper, but my point is $20/month is more than reasonable.

 

[SnappleRumors]

But it’s not.

No such thing as a good source, everyone has a an agenda / bias and rely on third party information.

Good lord, obviously there’s no metric for trustworthiness. I’ve found Al Jazeera as a good source of information regarding the Ukraine-Russia matter hence I offered it as an alternative. Your mileage may vary.

 

[TallManNY]

There are expenses associated with running Twitter; someone has to pay if it's "free" for users. Elon seems to be trying to wean the company off its total dependency on advertising income; in other words, stop allowing the users to be the *only* products. Instead, he's seeking to siphon some money from the individuals and companies who are profiting off of Twitter. It makes perfect sense and is in line with the goals he has announced.

Yeah. Paying some fee for something you use for your business should not be a shocking thing. $20/month seems a lot for a social media subscription, but for some people twitter is part of their job. For those people, it is a meaningless expense. Like every verified check mark for every company that has a twitter account will pay this fee and not notice it. They probably already have two full time employees that "work" twitter already. $20 a month will mean nothing to those folks.

But advertising revenue is still going to be the driver of revenue.

 

[Juicy Box]

Kind of reminds me of old SJ stories.

You'll notice that Steve Jobs didn't say anything even remotely like this immediately upon returning to Apple.

There's a reason for that - your best employees who have plenty of options to work elsewhere would be the first ones to leave, because few want to work for a tyrant that starts off by threatening his employees.

Steve was demanding of his people, but his employees knew he had their back. And as Steve was fond of saying, the best like working with the best.

Being hard on your employees needs to be earned. Study after study show that the trait that correlates most with a team's success is their emotional safety - that is, knowing that it's okay to make mistakes.

Leading by fear is the opposite of this.

Elon thinks he’s Steve Jobs but he’s more like Elizabeth Holmes (who also thought she was like Steve Jobs.)

The failed Mobile Me launch was what I had in mind.

 

[SactoGuy18]

US$20 is way too much per month. A more reasonable US$10 per month may finally occur.