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

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.