According to the new CEO of Twitter Inc. Elon Musk, Twitter’s Blue service, which includes the sought-after “verified” badge, will cost $8 per month, as he seeks to increase subscriptions and reduce the social media network’s reliance on ads.
“Twitter’s current lords and peasants system for determining who has or does not have a blue checkmark is nonsense. The people have the upper hand! “Blue for $8/month,” Musk tweeted, adding that the price will be adjusted by “country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”
Subscribers with verification badges will also have priority in replies, mentions, and searches and the ability to post longer videos and audio. They would see half as many advertisements.
He also offered paywall bypasses from “publishers willing to work with us” to subscribers.
Musk’s comments come after media reports that he investigated the profile verification process and how the blue check marks were distributed. Twitter used to award these to notable profiles based on its own set of criteria.
Twitter already has a subscription service called Twitter Blue, which launched in June of last year and includes features like the ability to edit tweets.
Following reports that Twitter may soon begin charging verified users a $20 monthly fee for blue ticks, bestselling author Stephen King tweeted, “If that gets implemented, I’m gone like Enron.”
Separately, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Twitter to B- due to a “significant” increase in debt as a result of the acquisition.
He has come under fire for his plan to charge Twitter users USD 8 per month to obtain or maintain a verified account. However, he shared a hilarious meme to defend his decision.
He shared a hilarious meme in which people are happy to pay $8 for a Starbucks coffee but complain about having to pay for a Twitter verification tick. He then posted another photo of a $58 sweatshirt.
