Stephen King on Musk's plan to charge $20/mo to keep Twitter verification

[highplainsdem]

Link to tweet

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Like Rocky Balboa said to Adrian about losing money from his locker....

"It may not seem like much, but it adds up."

$20 a month may not seem like much, but over a year it adds up times that by how many millions of users?

Even Rocky could do math!

[LakeArenal]

44. If I'm going to give out $20 a month it ain't to Twit

I will support a charity or DU for that matter.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

50. I spend just under that monthly here at DU....

Because DU is worth it.

[LakeArenal]

51. I buy Valentines.

[Lucinda]

2. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[Dustlawyer]

3. Because the richest man in the world does not have enough.

[jaxexpat]

6. It clearly speaks to Musk's character.

One does not become a billionaire by good deeds nor, I'm afraid, a successful custodian of social platforms by raw-knuckled, in-your-face avarice. Maybe it's more expensive landing rockets on their butts than you'd think.

[rubbersole]

52. The rockets are making millions.

And more millions when the Star-link satellites they are putting in orbit go into service. Elon can go fuck himself.

[OMGWTF]

59. Many ultra rich people are hoarders. Period.

They will never be satisfied.

[yardwork]

4. Why bother with verifications. Musk will let bots take over anyway.

He'll wreck it.

[oldsoftie]

5. I don't know anyone who is willing to pay. We see ads. Monetize THAT.

Facebook either.
Especially $20 a MONTH

[malaise]

7. It will be a humiliating public suicide

Fusk Muck!

[LiberalFighter]

61. If he sells I hope it is at a major loss.

[Caliman73]

69. People would be stupid to buy Twitter if this is the direction Musk is taking it.

It is what happened to My Space, almost exactly. It was big, maybe even bigger or at least as big as Facebook, but they tried to make it pay to play and it seemed to die. Now, it still exists, but at a fraction of what it was, and it seems to be like a little Pandora, rather than a social network like it was before.

Twitter, if Musk cuts staff, makes people pay for their safety, and lets idiot right wingers like Trump back on the platform, is going to kill any value that the site still has left. Once the celebrities and influencers jump ship, all Musk will have left is a right wing cesspool like 4Chan and 8Chan.

[paulkienitz]

72. place your bets: will Twatter or Farcebook -- er, Meata -- fail first?

Which delusion will sink its company first: the one that says Twitter will be more popular and profitable with half of the content moderators laid off, or the one that says we all want to spend our days wearing sweaty VR goggles in order to participate in the Meatverse?

[LeftInTX]

79. The NYT never broke news on My Space

Did the NYT ever have a My Space account?
Did any of the media?

One of my kids had a My Space account. It was just a bunch of pictures.

[Hiawatha Pete]

78. +1000 n/t

[IronLionZion]

8. It takes money to build more penis rockets

[BidenRocks]

65. That would be Bezos

Blue Origin aka, The Flying Penis.
It got circumsized (sic) on its last flight.

[IronLionZion]

74. Musk has SpaceX

https://www.spacex.com/

[Buns_of_Fire]

9. Elon needs to generate a revenue stream; so

Twitter will look profitable; so

He can dump it onto the next sucker -- er, highly knowledgeable and successful businessman.

Or perhaps it's just a little bit possible that he's flakey as hell. Probably both.

[Farmer-Rick]

27. Yeah, people will be leaving in masses

And it will become a far right cess pool with rampant racism, sexism and antisemitism.

So the site will need to charge money to be profitable because what greedy corporation wants to be associated with the N word and abuse? Even Fox doesn't allow some things.

But Twitter is all about letting people talk. Now only certain types of people will be talking on Twitter and it will be boring and hateful. Kind of like most all right wing sites.

[DENVERPOPS]

58. I sure hope that the

people will flee in masses.

I can only think he was going to sell it to the FEDERALISTS or KOCH or the REPUBLICAN PARTY for a nice profit....

[70sEraVet]

10. It would keep out the 'lower-incomes'

They shouldn't have free speech if they can't afford to pay for it!

[Zeitghost]

30. Blue Checks

Are for "notable" people/orgs. Those who have them can afford the $20/month. Whether they will think it's worth it is the question.

[70sEraVet]

55. Thanks. I didn't catch that.

[LeftInTX]

40. Blue check means you're verified media/public figure

Now a large org could pay for its employee or could just say "screw it"

[70sEraVet]

53. Thanks. I didn't catch that. But I STILL think Musk is an elitist dick.

[LeftInTX]

54. Doesn't sound like a very good business model

YouTube: Free
FB: Free

I think people gravitated to those platforms because they're quick and free. I'm sure the first tweet from a reporter occurred because the reporter said, "Hey I'll try this. It's free". Sure $5/month isn't much for a public figure, but still...Also media orgs can have many reporters, if a small outlet needs to cut costs, it could yank the twitter verification fees.

[speak easy]

70. There are not many 'official' corporate or government announcements on YouTube.

[LeftInTX]

77. Media is on YouTube. Media is big on Twitter.

[onecaliberal]

63. I read that he was going to offer the checks to anyone who wanted it.

[LeftInTX]

64. Oh gawd......

[onecaliberal]

66. Yeah...

🎃👻

[themaguffin]

11. I'm hoping that Twitter charges for this and other things.

[highplainsdem]

13. You mean so Twitter will fail and disappear soon?

[themaguffin]

15. Yep. Most people will not pay. I love the idea.

[Ilsa]

82. Trolls and bots will pay. Not me.

Trolls and bots will be all that's left.

[themaguffin]

85. Good. Let it die. Someone can do better than twitter did (even before Musk)

[blueinredohio]

12. Goes to show he's only in it for the money

[themaguffin]

17. For $44 billion, that should be the top priority for anyone. The fact is though, that

Twitter has never been a great platform for advertising. I work in digital advertising - not paid social, so I'm not involved, but I haven't worked anywhere or know colleagues that advertise on it for that reason. Obviously, they do have advertisers, but nothing like FB etc.

[Zeitghost]

67. That's generally

Why people spend billions (or any amount really) on a company. I doubt he was looking for a hobby.

[rurallib]

14. Even Trump won't pay that

But then, Trump doesn't pay for anything

[infullview]

16. He'll have one paying customer with the initials D. T.

[Justice matters.]

76. Nahhhh.

He'll make it free for his dear hair furhair he cannot live without.

[SergeStorms]

18. There were other investors in this buyout.

I can't imagine they're too thrilled with the "Chief Twit's" actions thus far. Maybe they are though, if all they care about is some ego-crazed "smartest man on earth's" plans to take Twitter hard right and alienate over half of it's users.

It doesn't sound as if Twitmusk cares a bit about company goodwill. Laying off thousands of people just to avoid severance pay is a great motivator for the remaining employees. 🙄

[aggiesal]

19. If they charge $20/mo., 2 things will happen ...

Pendejo45 won't pay, because he's not satisfied with the service and
the number of his followers will sink like a rock in water.

[multigraincracker]

20. 3# Get about

20 friends together and pay a buck apiece for a password and share a general type name like "cheaters".

[highplainsdem]

21. Since they're requiring verification and payment, you can expect a demand that the name registered

match the credit card.

[Pepsidog]

22. If someone has a huge following that took years to establish, they will pay, unfortunately.

People like me, the casual user of Twitter, however, will not pay especially if it becomes a right wing looney town.

[Zeitghost]

32. Are you a verified user?

n/t

[meadowlander]

43. Their managers/companies will pay.

99% of celebrity accounts are only there to advertise new movies, books, albums, etc. $240/year for something that could generate tens of thousands in additional sales isn't a bad deal to them.

They may stop posting personal content and the actually interesting non-promotional accounts may close but I don't think you'll see a massive exodus of verified accounts.

One of my family members is an author. She only has Facebook/Twitter etc. accounts because her agent requires her to and also pushes her to post regularly to keep engagement up.

Most verified people wouldn't be paying out of pocket for this. The marketing department of whatever they're working on will pick up the tab. And they may have surprisingly little say in shutting down the account even if they wanted to.

[Pepsidog]

56. Thanks for the info.

[ananda]

23. I only follow the twitter links here to like them.

If I lose that, so what?

[LakeArenal]

46. Ditto.

[Tommymac]

24. Man that thread is full of nasty stinky Musk Trolls.

Steven King really raised the ire of the bot army for Musk.

Fuck Musk and the crappy electric car he rode in on.

[Eyeball_Kid]

26. I haven't heard of anything that verifies that the Tesla is a crappy car.

It looks damned good. If the performance or maintenance runs into trouble, then that's a different story. Musk should have stayed with cars. He's proving to be a poor business person in other areas. Building rockets? For what? Mars? Why? There's a reason that it's not inhabited. How about Musk going on a venture to eliminate global warming HERE.

[druidity33]

62. Tesla cars absolutely suck in the cold...

I have a co-worker who owns one and loves it. But he's a total fanboy. He doesn't show up when it gets below 30 degrees here because he can't ever get his car to start. Even my neighbor's 12 year old Prius works better in the winter.



on second thought, i googled "Does Tesla make good cars?" and got lots of information. Here's one link:

https://www.hotcars.com/reasons-why-buying-a-tesla-is-a-bad-idea/

Here's another:

https://insideevs.com/news/549130/consumerreports-tesla-reliability-poor-2021/

on edit, here's another:

https://provscons.com/pros-and-cons-of-tesla/

[Demsrule86]

83. It has awful reliability. In fact, it is dead last. Also why feed a dangerous right wing Trump lovin

Billionaire who treats his workers like garbage?
.

[vlyons]

25. $20/ month, $240/yr

to have advertisers pitch their ads to me? No way. I deleted my account last week.

[SoBlueInFL]

28. What really bugs me is how we farmed out our space program to industry. Tax payer r/o

dollars have put Musk in this position of great power and it disgusts me.

[LeftInTX]

42. Much worse than Twitter

Musk is power hungry, Trump wannabe

[Peacetrain]

29. Musk got taken to the laundry by Twitter..

How much less is Twitter worth than what he paid for probably trying to pull himself out of a hole .. I really wonder if what he is worth is all bubbles and about to float away

[Pluvious]

33. The interest on the borrowed money is...

… over a billion a year alone.

The last quarter Twitter reported a net loss.

If the value of Tesla’s stock drops much more, things will become quite dicey for the Head Twit.

[AKwannabe]

48. Delisted from the stock exchange 10/28/22. nt

[joshcryer]

49. $44 billion. It will never get paid back.

It is hilarious.

[Takket]

31. He's absolutely right.

He and other stars are what attract million to the platform. If they all left, millions would not stick around.

[ancianita]

34. King can do that. But imo he's not seeing what platforms are up to -- attention & data, gatekeeping

and colonizing human activity. A good book on this is Nick Srnicek's Platform Capitalism.
Hackers will tell you that by their very nature, platforms tend to throw up large monopolies. Platform capitalism is a winner-take-all competition.

Platforms negatively drive the future of privacy, net neutrality, and free software and the coding that keeps the Internet democratic. They are driving economic contracts between management and labor into the ground.

Digital platforms across the board are enclosing their territory and centralizing the web experience through business models like "walled gardens" or "vertical integration", and they restrict users to the company's applications and sharing. The goal of Amazon, Apple and Google is to be all-encompassing proprietary code environments, and then convincing people that those environments are the Internet. That American freedom of information is really on their corporate terms.

This bodes badly for the future, and Elon is just today's shiny target who's pumping speculation, while the economic momentum across platforms, not just Twitter, enlarges the income gap. Platform capitalism doesn't serve the commonwealth, and so when platforms cause economics that don't work for most of the people, they cause a dangerous prospect for democracy.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

35. Musk doesn't seem to understand that these people create free content for his platform.

Without it, what is there?

[ancianita]

38. He fully understands the content functions of platforms. He's just setting terms for whose content

will grow his platform business.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

39. I'm not sure that's true.

If he drives away leading figures who drive traffic to Twitter, the platform will suffer.

And advertisers will be unlikely to support Twitter if it is taken over by racists and extremist populist-nationalists.

[ancianita]

41. It's true. It's only been three days, and our initial interpretations don't really nail down

his big picture plan. Yes, he's lost some. He'll gain more.
And the audience he's lost will be outside the influencer audience he plans to cultivate.

It's too soon to really know how he'll run this platform business, since opinions here don't square with the fact that he's already honoring the much more progressive and advanced EU policies on platform capitalism there. Which is one reason he withdrew his 'Paul Pelosi tweet.' We in the US should look into the EU's laws and regulations of digital media; we could take some lessons from what they're doing on behalf of EU users. And it's expert hackers who the EU has employed to help them develop and implement these laws and regulations.

[Mosby]

36. He should make twitter a subscription.

With a small fee, all the bots will be gone. Also, the mgmt will know who people are, kinda like the star system here.

[Martin68]

37. Now why wouldn't Elon want verified celebrities on Twitter?

Too much competition?

[The Jungle 1]

45. Time for something new.

Twitter is bull shit.

[AKwannabe]

47. Ladies and gentlemen

I rest my case.

Take him down King!

[calimary]

57. I barely ever actively use Twitter.

I only see what’s posted here.

Won’t miss it.

[Ruby the Liberal]

60. Verification credibility as a model made sense

Making it pay for play will tank their reputation and advertizers will flee.

And guessing there will be more than a few blue checks following Mr King out the door.

Its a damn shame.

(Edit - that should have read Verification = credibility)

[Red Mountain]

68. So how many blue checks are there?

How much $ would this generate with 100% compliance?

[highplainsdem]

73. About 300,000 verified accounts.

[paulkienitz]

71. he's right; Twitter's collection of celebrities and famous blowhards is a major asset

[Stuart G]

75. It may be a con job. Publishing 20 a month, and then charging 5 a month later,

Oh, then people will say, Five a month ain't bad, compared to 20 a month. What do you know?
............Say it ain't so "Shoeless Joe"........................................Musk would never con someone.

[cstanleytech]

80. I have a Twitter account and Musk can go fuck himself if he thinks I am willing to pay for it as

Twitter is not vital to me and I can and will cancel my account in a heartbeat.

[soldierant]

81. Gee, do you suppose I can finally get them to take the original owner

of the blog I inherited off of Twitter entirely?

I sent them an obit and a death certificate, bu because I didn't have his picture ID (I'm only his executor for the blog, not for anything else) they wouldn't take him off, and their emails are still coming to his blog's email address.

But maybe if they drop the blue check, and he cannot re-verify (because, d'oh! he's dead!), perhaps he'll eventally disappear from there.

[mopinko]

84. guess who replied?

Link to tweet

fun thread.

[Stuart G]

86. Well, What do you know, once a con artist....Always ....."A CON ARTIST"....I TAUGHT ABOUT "CON

ARTISTS" WHEN i WAS TEACHING IN HIGH SCHOOL IN THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

.....i STARTED TEACHING ABOUT "CON ARTISTS" IN 1969 AND CONTINUED TILL I RETIRED IN 1997.
..... and, ALL OF THEM ARE THE SAME. ANYTHING TO GET YOU TO SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE.............

.........................................DID I SAY ANYTHING?................YES, ANYTHING TO SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE...

................oh, and 8 dollars a month seems-- a lot less than 20 dollars a month..............that is how they work.

as someone once said, "I kid you, not" ....(that one goes back a long way, don't remember who said it)