Musk is reportedly considering charging verified Twitter users $4.99/mo to keep verification.

[highplainsdem]

And of course without verification, those identities will be targeted even more by impersonators. Even if the original, actual account is closed.

Link to tweet

[unweird]

1. Monetization

Gotta pay for them twits somehow.

[GreenWave]

2. Now how much to read those tweets?

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. Elon - desperate to monetize Twitter anyway he can.

And any economic action has a corresponding negative financial reaction. Man has bought the greatest booby prize of all time.

[littlemissmartypants]

4. Someone suggested deleting the accounts that advertise on your time-line.

I just deleted seven accounts associated with the ads on my time-line and it was very satisfying. ❤️

[pinkstarburst]

5. Don't get me wrong

I am concerned about potential changes that may be coming too. But isn't this likely to only affect high profile people (politicians, celebrities)? How many regular joe schmos on Twitter do you know with a verified account? None of my friends have one, not even those with very large followings. If you're a politician or a celeb, $5 a month is probably not something they're all that concerned with.

[area51]

8. You bring up an interesting point,

but I suspect this isn't the only monetization that Musk will try. Other monetization may affect regular users. Could be limited posting ability unless you pay, for instance.

[pinkstarburst]

28. Possibly, but I think he'll kill Twitter

if he does that. Charging celebrities like Tom Brady, Prince Harry or Oprah a fee to have a verified account is no big deal. They have plenty of money, so whether it's $5 a month or $20, they'll pay it to keep the verified account.

If he starts charging regular users to use Twitter, they'll abandon the platform the same way young users are abandoning Facebook and Instagram and he'll be hemorrhaging money. TikTok doesn't charge any fees. It would be literally the dumbest business decision EM could make.

[sheshe2]

9. That is true for now...

However, time will tell what happens to the rest of us.

[Nevilledog]

27. This is interesting

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

David H. Montgomery
@dhmontgomery
·
Follow
Remember: The reason Twitter has "Verified Accounts" in the first place is because baseball manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter over an impersonator account:
hollywoodreporter.com
Tony La Russa Twitter lawsuit settled
In about as much time as it takes to type out a 140-character tweet, Twitter and St. Louis manager Tony La Russa have settled their legal dispute.
6:44 PM · Oct 30, 2022

[AntivaxHunters]

29. That's interesting! I had no idea

Thank you for sharing this!

[BlueIdaho]

34. Twitter is already selling your information

What else do you want?

[Initech]

6. Well... bye Twitter!

[sheshe2]

7. Kind of funny when you think about it...

The man that has been promoting Free Speech is now going to charge you to speak freely.

[BootinUp]

10. Musk is reversing course a lot lately. Its starting to

look like a feature.

[Captain Zero]

14. Starting to look like TFG

A fart in a skillet.

[LeftInTX]

11. Good! Trump won't pay!

[Captain Zero]

15. He could do verified falsehood charges.

He'd make billions off of GQPs and TFG.

[sheshe2]

17. ...

[Cha]

12. I don't have any reason to

be "verified" so No money for the Billionaire Idiot from me.

[ananda]

13. Advertisers are leaving, I guess.

Interesting.

[FelineOverlord]

16. I think this sort of thing has been considered before

Twitter doesn’t have ads but “sponsored tweets”.

Considering how incredibly powerful the platform is, it doesn’t make the revenue that it could.

[C_U_L8R]

18. He should be paying verified users

They're much more valuable to advertisers. Nice try, Musk.

[Jack the Greater]

19. Why not $5? It's a nice round number. Is that too much?

He would need about 37 million subscribers to earn back his original investment in 20 years, plus operating expenses. which means salaries, supplies, rentals, taxes, etc. At the current level of operating expenses he would need another 50 million subscribers, for total of 87 million. If he manages to slash the operating budget in half, he might get by with 62 million subscribers.

[TheBlackAdder]

24. Yep. A nice $60/yr instead of $59.88

[NewHendoLib]

20. fuck twitter. fuck musk.

[Takket]

21. that 44 billion he just sank into this to preserve his ego isn't just going to grow on a tree

[RockRaven]

22. I'm seeing reporting that the figure is actually $20/mo not $4.99...

Of course, it is Elon so who the fuck knows... There's probably at least one purposely false story leaked to some reporter related to this matter just to keep everyone off balance.

[Kid Berwyn]

23. Stock value jumps?

Falls?

No matter.

Elon wins!

[brooklynite]

35. There is no stock value (in a traditional sense)

TWITTER is 100% privately owned and off the market.

That's why Musk was able to dismiss his Board of Trustees.

[Kid Berwyn]

36. So, he owns the only carpet in town.

One day, if he wants or must, he can sell it — in whole or in parts. By then, it’s likely he will have cornered all of the liquid capital on the planet and the rights to nearby mineable asteroids, so he can pay himself in cash or bitcoin.

[Nevilledog]

25. Saw this: Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification

Link to tweet

[OhioChick]

26. That's accurate. n/t

[mainer]

30. When all the blue checks leave...

All you’ll have left are bots and impersonators. Being on Twitter will be like listening to the ravings in an insane asylum. Blue-check people can certainly afford the fee, but their presence on Twitter is why other people go on Twitter- to hear from people in the know. Musk is going to drive away the talent.

[mainer]

31. And by the way, I'm a blue check person

And I’ll damn well leave, too.

[LeftInTX]

32. Yeah. I always look for the blue check

[pinkstarburst]

33. I don't follow anyone

to my knowledge who is a blue check. I follow my friends. I follow other people with similar interests. My feed is certainly not bots and impersonators or an insane asylum.

[mainer]

37. Some of us follow journalists and leaders in our fields

That’s where a blue check is vital. To know that the news flash is real and not from a fake. If you just use it to hear from friends, like on Facebook, then blue checks won’t matter to you.

[pinkstarburst]

38. I use it professionally as well

but the vast majority of professional people in my field do not bother with the blue checkmark other than a very, very few.