4 ms·

$4.99 monthly seems quite high for something that was free.

• qull 4y ago
  It wasn't exactly free, but a crony system from what I can tell. Honestly feels way too cheap at 5$ for what it is and the unjustified weight it carries.
  • anecdotal1 4y ago
    I'll pay $5 to be verified and then hopefully have an option to filter out every account that isn't verified
    • Nomentatus 4y ago
      Indeed. As Hubert Humphrey said: "Everyone has a right to speak, but nobody has the right to be heard." Okay I'm wrong. The correct quote is: “The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.” ― Hubert H. Humphrey Maybe if he'd lived into the internet age, he'd have gone with my quote. There ain't time to hear everybody on the net, or Twitter.
    • gonzo41 4y ago
      That option should be free though. The 90, 9, 1 rule applies strongly to twitter. Elon and team should try and milk the 1% for a lot of cash and make the experience pleasant for the 90% who just read it all.
      • anecdotal1 4y ago
        Oh sure the filter should be free for everyone, why not. It just makes the verified accounts even more valuable
  • Nomentatus 4y ago
    I believe that Lithuania has an electronic ID system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_identity_card#As_electronic_signature_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_identity_card#As_el... that's been working. I think we're behind the curve here; it should be easy to very strongly verify my identiry to any online business I choose to do that with; without government taking the lead, every damn company is going to be expensively reinventing that wheel.
    • tttttt5ts 4y ago
      Most companies shouldn't need this information. I don't give my id to most businesses I visit in person. The ability for online services to "verify" me does not need to be easy and it doesn't need to be cheap otherwise it will just be abused.
      • Nomentatus 4y ago
        But bots can't walk into most businesses in person. My point is that I don't want to hear from an account that isn't at least verified to be set up by a verified specific human being.
        • tttttt5ts 4y ago
          And you should be able to filter to only accounts that are verified and pay $5/month. I think this is an issue with twitter and their product. "verification" is one possible solution. But, other product changes would probably work better. E.g., I rarely have such negative interactions on hacker news and they don't even require a CC or a phone.
          • Nomentatus 4y ago
            Agreed, and I want to see more than one change and some experimentation, too.
      • adamckay 4y ago
        But if you're out in public and you start shouting harmful, hateful or abusive messages there can be real-world consequences. On Twitter you can be the most vile person possible with absolutely no fear as you're entirely anonymous.
    • hombre_fatal 4y ago
      Twitter’s blue checkmark isn’t just authentication. The reason anyone cares about it is that it means “I’m a somebody”.
• tfsh 4y ago
  a 4.99 monthly expense for accounts have who'm are likely to be world leaders, public figures, large organisations and the odd charity/public good insitute is not a steap price. Statistically, of course it's a large increase. However from a business perspective I do not think so. A quick search indicates there are 294,000 accounts, and at 4.99 a month that would yield Twitter $1,467,060 a month, which is hardly anything. Especially as I imagine ~10-15% of those accounts will decide to forgo the badge, either in protest or because they just don't care.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    If you're verified on Twitter and not getting $5 a month value out of it, what even are you really doing there?
  • pessimizer 4y ago
    At current numbers, yes, but a lot more people might want to be verified if Musk decides that the only qualifications are that you are who you say you are, and that you're willing to prove it to twitter.
  • watwut 4y ago
    Nah, they are mostly very minor public figures and that is stretching definition of public figure for most. Majority is nowhere near to anyone big or important.
• yieldcrv 4y ago
  I've bought many social media accounts before, this is way more efficient and less disaster prone than paying for likes/followers, as you won't get bots. You'll get a professionally curated and grown account with the level of engagement to your choosing, with the audience geared towards the brand/theme of the account's content. What people don't realize is that each individual account is like purchasing a business. There are way too many similarities to think of it any differently. When you buy an account, you get all the DMs which often include a whole network of traders, promoters, service providers, negotiations, trade lines. Typically you also get the email address and password used to create the account, which has even more of this. You are mostly getting ROI pretty quickly by doing a few promos really quickly. Its actually based on a multiple of getting ROI. Purchasing an account is a fairly low trust environment, fraught with scams. Most social media Terms of Service actually exacerbate this, by mostly banning the concept of buying/selling an account. Since this happens, the platform should actually be facilitating these transactions and there is a lot of value to extract. Escrow services charge 30% right now, but a network of trusted traders is better and more valuable. With that said, $4.99/mo for the tip of the iceberg of the value of these accounts is extremely underpriced. Tolerable overhead costs are in the thousands if we are being honest. This should be its own separate tier than just "Twitter Blue", as it will price out too many people to operate at scale, but this is definitely a model that is neglected by social media platforms right now.
• Ekaros 4y ago
  To me it seems rather cheap. Specially for something that could not have gotten before without nepotism and corruption.