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

[steevn]

His first two ventures were successful, though. He turned a 28k loan into $22 million for himself and then he went on to found X.com, now known as PayPal. While a great ROI, folks didn't tend to like his CEO capabilities at either.

He is the child of diamond mining millionaires, he already came from money so implying he started with basically nothing and turning it into something is a pretty far reach.

Even with x.com it was bought out by a company called Confinity which THEN removed Elon and became PayPal.

He bought into Tesla, not invented Tesla. Tesla as well as all of his subsequent businesses receive massive government subsidies, so there is a very valid argument that Elon probably hindered space exploration and sciences by taking so much money from the government as well as resources and would be nasa employees instead of everyone paying their share of taxes and one department being funded well enough to do their intended job.

This applies to all the old rich bros creating their own rockets, but for some reason Elon always gets so much credit for so little that he actually did. And what he took away from government in taxes and subsidies ultimately took away from space exploration, yet he gets all the credit for taking a rocket around the earth playing David Bowie when that’s not even something new.

Did he make two extremely great investment decisions? Yes, absolutely. Is he a great businessman and leader? Not really, there’s still two Tesla vehicles he bragged about years ago that aren’t even close to production still….

 

[gank41]

If you see Elon's latest poll it shows almost no one would even pay $15 to be verified. It means you have to be you and a public person and use your real name. The real lure of twitter is its toxic anonymity.

And then his response (since deleted) was "Interesting"... As if he didn't already know.

 

[thettareddast]

If you see Elon's latest poll it shows almost no one would even pay $15 to be verified. It means you have to be you and a public person and use your real name. The real lure of twitter is its toxic anonymity.

Maybe you misunderstood my post. The subscription aren't meant to convert anonymous people.

Twitter's existing community are a majority who want to be anonymous and a minority who aren't - business people, politicians, scientists, internet micro-celebs.

The subscription will collect incremental revenue from this minority - who ALREADY uses their real name, but have been paying nothing. These people have an incentive to remain verified.

 

[tubular]

He didn't want it, now he'd gonna kill it for a tax write off. Seems like everyone wins here.

I remember when Fox took a half-billion-dollar write-off on MySpace.

And a year ago Meta was trading at $330 a share, now it's under $100.

I think we'll look back at Musk's decision as 2022's second worst, right behind "We can take Kiev in three days."

 

[VampyricGentleman]

Haven’t used Twitter since the really early days. Prior to Elon Musk planning to take over I’d contemplated a return. But with what I have already seen about his proposals and what he’s posted I’m not going to bother.

For those talking about the nobodies with blue check marks, I know of several people who have them as they are acquaintances. They may be nobodies to most of the population of the planet, but to the groups and subcultures they belong to they are well known and have in some cases had issues with impersonation so the blue check means that anyone following them knows it’s their authentic account.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Crashing this bird app with no survivors. This is gonna be fun.

 

[SnappleRumors]

Today is Oct 31. It will be interesting to see if there are mass layoffs today.

 

[1284814]

Hahahahahan, the blue ceck marks! I am going loco XD. 20$/ month. hahahaja…. For cancer. Lol. XD

 

[mikethemartian]

lol now THAT is an ultimatum.

I am wondering if Steve ever pulled this off… giving them ultimatum and fire engineers for not meeting it.

Twitter engineers have been too lazy to make any changes, and now they are in for a rude awakening!

I would just resign immediately if I received an ultimatum like that. To many good opportunities elsewhere to put up with that crap.

 

[belvdr]

He is the child of diamond mining millionaires, he already came from money so implying he started with basically nothing and turning it into something is a pretty far reach.

Even with x.com it was bought out by a company called Confinity which THEN removed Elon and became PayPal.

I didn't say he started with nothing. He took a loan and made it profitable. The fact his company X.com was bought means it was of value to someone.

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

What took you so long? It is the sewer of the internet as has been that way for a long time.

I've been asking myself the same question, and I honestly don't know. I'm just pleased I got out!

To quote someone I'm very close with, "Twitter is the mother of all bridges!", alluding to how many toxic trolls thrive on the platform.

 

[Thomas Davie]

I’m using Twitter to follow the war in Ukraine. That’s it. I don’t post and don’t care about blue whatevers. I get the verified Twitter handles from the original sources (eg Kyiv Post or Kyiv Independent). Half pf what I read appears to be posted by unstable people so I just go block happy.

Tom

 

[4743913]

And so begins the inevitable fall of Twitter, soon to be destined to the great social media graveyard alongside MySpace, Bebo and Friends Reunited 😞

you forgot the best one, Orkut. thanks scummy google.

 

[k1121j]

While I agree for paying for extra features not sure paying to edit a tweet is something I’d pay for.

 

[djphat2000]

I doubt it's priced in, he will disagree and fight against the cut.

You wouldn't need to subscribe via the IAP. So, nothing would go to Apple if he doesn't want it to. A-LA-Netflix

 

[Rogifan]

I thought the whole point of the checkmark (which Instagram has too) was to confirm the authenticity of the accounts of famous people, politicians, journalists etc. Unfortunately for Twitter it became this class based thing and there were questions around the process and who they’ll give a checkmark to and who they won’t. If this is meant to be a revenue raiser it won’t do much as there aren’t enough verified accounts and a lot of existing verified accounts will gladly lose the checkmark over paying Twitter $20/mo. I wonder if someone on Team Musk floated this to see who would leak it and then they’ll fire the leaker(s).

 

[randyhudson]

Let's see how Elon will react when Apple demands their 30% of $20.
3,2,1 - fight!

Why would that happen? Apple doesn't get 30% of my Amazon Prime subscription.

 

[yngrshr]

"or else be fired"

He sounds real fun to work for!

He's a notably awful employer. Tesla in CA pays quite a bit less than competitors but it keeps people there with the literal cult mentality that they can be paid less to change the world. Don't even get me started on the Nevada operation and its transient, poorly paid, poorly trained workforce.

One of the main reasons there are so many QC issues with Tesla cars.

 

[mattopotamus]

Why would that happen? Apple doesn't get 30% of my Amazon Prime subscription.

Yeah, that person doesn't understand how the Apple fee works.

 

[6787872]

He's a notably awful employer. Tesla in CA pays quite a bit less than competitors but it keeps people there with the literal cult mentality that they can be paid less to change the world. Don't even get me started on the Nevada operation and its transient, poorly paid, poorly trained workforce.

One of the main reasons there are so many QC issues with Tesla cars.

cult mentality and basically a resume builder.

the quality of tesla software is horrific. i am a hiring director for a FAANG company and i will almost always throw away any tesla resumes. their software is atrocious (not just talking about FSD but the infotainment too).

 

[Dan From Canada]

I personally hope all social media turns to ash as it’s all toxic crap any way.

100% true.
Too many social media sites are nothing but places for nuts and extremists to pound everyone with their disinformation.
Twitter is a great example of that.
Social media is responsible in part for the decline of society and the rise of anarchy.

 

[Rogifan]

They aren't, thousands of no-name regular people have checkmarks. They are useless currently and will be useless under the new plan. But at least now they'll generate some revenue. Elon is a genius.

No it won’t because they’ll just give up the checkmark. The only ones who will pay it will be celebrities (who most likely have some PR person running their account) and companies/brands who can afford to pay for it. The amount of revenue it will generate is minuscule but it puts Musk front and center in the conversation on Twitter which is all he wants (it’s all Donald Trump ever wanted too).

 

[Icehawk]

Waiting for the followup: paid no ads version. Bait 'em with $20 blue. Hook 'em with $3 "We won't show you all the ads."

 

[gank41]

Yeah, that person doesn't understand how the Apple fee works.

Well, to be fair, if the prompt uses Apple's Payment Method in the app, that's considered an In App Purchase..

 

[Rogifan]

You are completely missing the point. The main feature of this subscription is he Verification.

Verified is a special status. It signals that the user is "known" and implies that their message carries more weight

If everyone is verified, then the status loses its meaning.

Who might want this status - and why would they pay for it? Journalists who want to be heard and promote articles. Celebrities who want to promote products. People who 1 way or another are trying to sell something. It's worth it for them to pay $20/mo.

Everyone else - who are mainly passive consumer of Twitter - have no incentive to pay for it.

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.