Enabling authenticated identity online (personas) is an objectively good thing. Authenticity is a precondition for most of modern life; small things like paymen

Enabling authenticated identity online (personas) is an objectively good thing. Authenticity is a precondition for most of modern life; small things like payments, driver's licenses, voting, education, employment, surgery. Alas, the $8/mo blue check is not that. Payment method is the only verification. No further effort is made. (Please correct me as Musk's answers change.) Instead, the blue check is nothing more than flare. Twitter's pivot towards freemium, gacha, and ultimately Freemium Speeches™ (pay-to-say) could work. There are precedents. Vanity press and academic journals, for instance. And I can envision a substack, medium, or twitter that enables a marketplace for value added services. Fact checking, copyediting, visual design, and so forth. An Upwork for content producers. Alas, I doubt that's Musk's vision for Twitter. For that, I recommend historian Jill Lepore's podcast The Evening Rocket. https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/elon-musk-the-evening-rocket https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/elon-musk-the-evening-rocket Spoiler: With the purchase of Twitter.com, Musk is likely rejuvenating his original goal for X.com.