8 ms·

Selling Blue Checks hits the reset button on Twitter's anointed elite

27 points by Balgair 4y ago

dragontamer 4y ago
> Chief Twit Musk, fresh from sacking the company's C-suite, clearing out the board and threatening mass layoffs, must now double Twitter's annual revenue just to cover interest on the debt that financed his acquisition. Twitter's revenue is $5 billion-ish. The new interest payments are estimated to be $1.3 Billion/year IIRC (~10%, as a large chunk of it was fixed in April 2022, when interest rates were better). Hardly a "double the revenue" situation. So that already stands out to me as a rather problematic start to the article. That being said, the rest of the point of the article seems correct to me. But its incredibly important to get a good grips on the scale of the problem here. Elon now needs to deal with a ~$1.3 billion/year interest on top of all the other costs of Twitter, in a rising interest-rate environment. I don't think $8 / month over even millions of users will get there (and I'm not sure if Twitter will get millions of users to subscribe to the model).
- bdcravens 4y ago
  > Twitter's revenue is $5 billion-ish. The new interest payments are estimated to be $1.3 Billion/year IIRC Most quarters Twitter operates at a loss. 2021 its profit was less than $1B.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    I agree. But words like "Revenue", "Operating Profit (loss)" and "Net Profit (loss)" have meanings. Looking at the 2021 10-k statement, I don't know what number has to "double" to cover the estimated new loans (and besides, no one seems to have reported on the details of these new loans either. Even the $1.3 billion/year estimate I put forward is just a round-assumption of 10%ish payments). ------- That paragraph there is... complete nonsense. I think its fair of me to point it out. https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c34-ca90-4099-b328-a6062adf110f.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c3...
msravi 4y ago
The blue tick used to signal that the account was "verified," which meant "My profile says I'm X, and I have a govt ID to prove that I'm X." At some point that wasn't enough, and you needed to be notable according to whoever decided you're notable at twitter. And with this, of course, ideological biases crept in with complaints rising that only people at one end of the spectrum were being verified. This move, in a way, gets rid of that subjective decision making and restores the objectivity of the process back to just checking against an ID. Of course, this requires some infrastructure and resources, both human and machine, and the ongoing $8 fee (adjusted by PPP) is justified.
sublinear 4y ago
Maybe I'm way off base here, but requiring payment seems to be less about making money and more about tying an identity to the user and the legal nature of the relationship between the user and the service. I also don't agree the blue checkmark is an ego thing, but just that it's necessary to do publicity work on Twitter.
mikkergp 4y ago
I can't help but feel like the blue check means more to the people who yearn for it than the people who have it. The phrase "anointed elite" just seems bitter to me. I wonder if there's something about the worldview has an anointed elite that makes people feel special, and sort of ironically, it's those people that aspire to it who are really the ones that will feel the effects of the reset button, and not the people who have it. Edit: getting downvoted, because people think this is wrong, and that Twitter elites do care? Or does this somehow come across as trolling, or against the spirit of HN?
- metadat 4y ago
  Hint: This is a risk with engaging in political HN threads; it's a comparatively harsher crowd. In my experience it's sort of a losing proposition, but Ymmv.
EricE 4y ago
Why stop with blue checks? I think blocking people/restricting access to your profile should also be part of a premium subscription.
- fazfq 4y ago
  I would pay for Twitter Blue if it allowed me to automatically block all current blue checkmarks holders.
wodenokoto 4y ago
Why are celebrities so pissed about losing the badge? Steven King went viral threatening to leave the platform and I and everybody pointing fingers at Elon and I’m just here thinking “why does Steven King care so badly?”
- Jerrrry 4y ago
  - favorited 4y ago
    In the last decade, King has published 16 novels & 2 short story collections, has had over a dozen of his works adapted for film and nearly as many again for television. More adaptions are planned for release this year and next. He is as relevant and influential today as he ever has been.
- nradov 4y ago
  It's just the usual sense of entitlement common amongst celebrities. If they receive a certain privilege for a while then they think they're entitled to it forever, even if they haven't done anything to earn it. But as a business, Twitter doesn't want to kill off their advertising revenue. I'm not a fan of Stephen King and don't care what he thinks, but his followers probably bring in more than $8 of ad revenue.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  The biggest benefit of the blue checkmark is it allows certain people with notoriety to counter fake accounts by saying "The company running this website has been convinced this account is controlled by the actual important person instead of someone running bitcoin based scams" Charging for that is just hostile to the community at large. It basically holds everyone hostage. How do you know the account you are looking at is controlled by the "actual" person in question? At least, probably I think this is an issue.
  - keneda7 4y ago
    I have to disagree. The blue check mark does not verify who you are. It verified your political ideology matched up with that of the blue check mark committee. Half the US population is already being held hostage by that group. You seem perfectly okay with those people being held hostage but then complain when a rule is applied equally to everyone. Seems to me your idea is: rules for thee but not for me.
truetraveller 4y ago
Here's an idea: have 2 checkmarks, both paid. A blue checkmark for everyone at $8/month. And a green checkmark with a pretty badge for extensively verified individuals. This green checkmark should be unique enough to stand out from the blue one. These individuals must go through an extensive process. and the cost is $100/month.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  Twitter Black, for $1000/month, allows you to screen out any tweets by checkmarks of lesser colors.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    Twitter Yellow: filter opinions and viewpointa that you disagree with
    - rsj_hn 4y ago
      Isn't that already baked in with the ability to choose which accounts you follow? I'm not sure, I haven't used Twitter in a long time, so maybe they made it like Facebook where they put stuff into your feed that you don't follow.
      - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
        Kinda. My experience is somewhat limited. I was perma banned for discussing hunter bidens laptop and Ashley Bidens diary.
rchaud 4y ago
One of Twitter's best features IMO is that you can mute specific words and phrases, and mute/block specific accounts including advertisers. I'm guessing this will soon go behind a paywall.
phone8675309 4y ago
At the bottom of this the question is "what does Twitter verification mean"? In the past, it meant that the platform backed you and thought you were important. Verified status had nothing to do with actually verifying the identity of who the person actually was. If it did then it would have been available to everybody, not the coterie that Twitter management anointed and specially protected. Making it a $8 sub without identity verification is just as meaningless as it current is except with expanded application and a way to make money instead of stroking the ego of those that have it and frustrating those who can't get it.
- bitshiftfaced 4y ago
  > Making it a $8 sub without identity verification is just as meaningless as it current is except with expanded application Where does it say that they're dropping identity verification?
  - rini17 4y ago
    It did say nothing about having it, too. That is suspicious since mass identity verification of millions of users worldwide is all but simple.
mberh7 4y ago
kelseyfrog 4y ago
I'm surprised that we haven't seen even a modicum of uproar from a contingent of the currently verified that selling their status for $8 a pop dilutes their prestige. Instead this is like the eight dollar version of "I Am Rich"[1]. 1. https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story/2008-08-07/apple-removes-1-000-featureless-iphone-application https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story...
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  FWIW Steven King said he'll quit Twitter forever since if he doesn't get to keep his blue checkmark for free
  - EricE 4y ago
    lol - just like everyone who was going to move to Canada if things didn't go their way politically? No, he won't quit and neither will the vast majority of them either.
  - jshzglr 4y ago
    And then proceeded to say that twitter(a free service) should pay him.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      As they should.
      - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
        Why? Unless he's teaching you how to write great novels, King's opinion isn't really worth anything in the grand scheme of things.
        zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        He'd have to learn how to write great novels first.

27 points by Balgair 4y ago

> Chief Twit Musk, fresh from sacking the company's C-suite, clearing out the board and threatening mass layoffs, must now double Twitter's annual revenue just to cover interest on the debt that financed his acquisition. Twitter's revenue is $5 billion-ish. The new interest payments are estimated to be $1.3 Billion/year IIRC (~10%, as a large chunk of it was fixed in April 2022, when interest rates were better). Hardly a "double the revenue" situation. So that already stands out to me as a rather problematic start to the article. That being said, the rest of the point of the article seems correct to me. But its incredibly important to get a good grips on the scale of the problem here. Elon now needs to deal with a ~$1.3 billion/year interest on top of all the other costs of Twitter, in a rising interest-rate environment. I don't think $8 / month over even millions of users will get there (and I'm not sure if Twitter will get millions of users to subscribe to the model).

bdcravens 4y ago
> Twitter's revenue is $5 billion-ish. The new interest payments are estimated to be $1.3 Billion/year IIRC Most quarters Twitter operates at a loss. 2021 its profit was less than $1B.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  I agree. But words like "Revenue", "Operating Profit (loss)" and "Net Profit (loss)" have meanings. Looking at the 2021 10-k statement, I don't know what number has to "double" to cover the estimated new loans (and besides, no one seems to have reported on the details of these new loans either. Even the $1.3 billion/year estimate I put forward is just a round-assumption of 10%ish payments). ------- That paragraph there is... complete nonsense. I think its fair of me to point it out. https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c34-ca90-4099-b328-a6062adf110f.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c3...

msravi 4y ago

The blue tick used to signal that the account was "verified," which meant "My profile says I'm X, and I have a govt ID to prove that I'm X." At some point that wasn't enough, and you needed to be notable according to whoever decided you're notable at twitter. And with this, of course, ideological biases crept in with complaints rising that only people at one end of the spectrum were being verified. This move, in a way, gets rid of that subjective decision making and restores the objectivity of the process back to just checking against an ID. Of course, this requires some infrastructure and resources, both human and machine, and the ongoing $8 fee (adjusted by PPP) is justified.

sublinear 4y ago

Maybe I'm way off base here, but requiring payment seems to be less about making money and more about tying an identity to the user and the legal nature of the relationship between the user and the service. I also don't agree the blue checkmark is an ego thing, but just that it's necessary to do publicity work on Twitter.

mikkergp 4y ago

I can't help but feel like the blue check means more to the people who yearn for it than the people who have it. The phrase "anointed elite" just seems bitter to me. I wonder if there's something about the worldview has an anointed elite that makes people feel special, and sort of ironically, it's those people that aspire to it who are really the ones that will feel the effects of the reset button, and not the people who have it. Edit: getting downvoted, because people think this is wrong, and that Twitter elites do care? Or does this somehow come across as trolling, or against the spirit of HN?

metadat 4y ago
Hint: This is a risk with engaging in political HN threads; it's a comparatively harsher crowd. In my experience it's sort of a losing proposition, but Ymmv.

EricE 4y ago

Why stop with blue checks? I think blocking people/restricting access to your profile should also be part of a premium subscription.

fazfq 4y ago
I would pay for Twitter Blue if it allowed me to automatically block all current blue checkmarks holders.

wodenokoto 4y ago

Why are celebrities so pissed about losing the badge? Steven King went viral threatening to leave the platform and I and everybody pointing fingers at Elon and I’m just here thinking “why does Steven King care so badly?”

Jerrrry 4y ago
- favorited 4y ago
  In the last decade, King has published 16 novels & 2 short story collections, has had over a dozen of his works adapted for film and nearly as many again for television. More adaptions are planned for release this year and next. He is as relevant and influential today as he ever has been.
nradov 4y ago
It's just the usual sense of entitlement common amongst celebrities. If they receive a certain privilege for a while then they think they're entitled to it forever, even if they haven't done anything to earn it. But as a business, Twitter doesn't want to kill off their advertising revenue. I'm not a fan of Stephen King and don't care what he thinks, but his followers probably bring in more than $8 of ad revenue.
mrguyorama 4y ago
The biggest benefit of the blue checkmark is it allows certain people with notoriety to counter fake accounts by saying "The company running this website has been convinced this account is controlled by the actual important person instead of someone running bitcoin based scams" Charging for that is just hostile to the community at large. It basically holds everyone hostage. How do you know the account you are looking at is controlled by the "actual" person in question? At least, probably I think this is an issue.
- keneda7 4y ago
  I have to disagree. The blue check mark does not verify who you are. It verified your political ideology matched up with that of the blue check mark committee. Half the US population is already being held hostage by that group. You seem perfectly okay with those people being held hostage but then complain when a rule is applied equally to everyone. Seems to me your idea is: rules for thee but not for me.

truetraveller 4y ago

Here's an idea: have 2 checkmarks, both paid. A blue checkmark for everyone at $8/month. And a green checkmark with a pretty badge for extensively verified individuals. This green checkmark should be unique enough to stand out from the blue one. These individuals must go through an extensive process. and the cost is $100/month.

rsj_hn 4y ago
Twitter Black, for $1000/month, allows you to screen out any tweets by checkmarks of lesser colors.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  Twitter Yellow: filter opinions and viewpointa that you disagree with
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    Isn't that already baked in with the ability to choose which accounts you follow? I'm not sure, I haven't used Twitter in a long time, so maybe they made it like Facebook where they put stuff into your feed that you don't follow.
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      Kinda. My experience is somewhat limited. I was perma banned for discussing hunter bidens laptop and Ashley Bidens diary.

rchaud 4y ago

One of Twitter's best features IMO is that you can mute specific words and phrases, and mute/block specific accounts including advertisers. I'm guessing this will soon go behind a paywall.

phone8675309 4y ago

At the bottom of this the question is "what does Twitter verification mean"? In the past, it meant that the platform backed you and thought you were important. Verified status had nothing to do with actually verifying the identity of who the person actually was. If it did then it would have been available to everybody, not the coterie that Twitter management anointed and specially protected. Making it a $8 sub without identity verification is just as meaningless as it current is except with expanded application and a way to make money instead of stroking the ego of those that have it and frustrating those who can't get it.

bitshiftfaced 4y ago
> Making it a $8 sub without identity verification is just as meaningless as it current is except with expanded application Where does it say that they're dropping identity verification?
- rini17 4y ago
  It did say nothing about having it, too. That is suspicious since mass identity verification of millions of users worldwide is all but simple.

mberh7 4y ago

kelseyfrog 4y ago

I'm surprised that we haven't seen even a modicum of uproar from a contingent of the currently verified that selling their status for $8 a pop dilutes their prestige. Instead this is like the eight dollar version of "I Am Rich"[1]. 1. https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story/2008-08-07/apple-removes-1-000-featureless-iphone-application https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story...

Rebelgecko 4y ago
FWIW Steven King said he'll quit Twitter forever since if he doesn't get to keep his blue checkmark for free
- EricE 4y ago
  lol - just like everyone who was going to move to Canada if things didn't go their way politically? No, he won't quit and neither will the vast majority of them either.
- jshzglr 4y ago
  And then proceeded to say that twitter(a free service) should pay him.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    As they should.
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      Why? Unless he's teaching you how to write great novels, King's opinion isn't really worth anything in the grand scheme of things.
      - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        He'd have to learn how to write great novels first.