4 ms·

Ask HN: Charging for Twitter verification, was it a wise decision?

• cbeach 4y ago
  Elon’s the kind of guy that moves fast, gives ideas a try, and re-evaluates constantly based on performance and feedback. So, it’s too early to predict the outcome, but having seen the success of Tesla and SpaceX, I think Twitter is worth watching.
• themodelplumber 4y ago
  Change others' profile name as seen in your feeds & lists, $5 / yr. Moar pinned lists, $2.99 / mo. Split screen mobile w/ e.g. compose & browse, $5 / mo. Grammar suggestions, $5 / mo. Sound Themes for Twitter UI, free for first 30 days, $2.99 / mo thereafter, includes Star Trek Sick yearly customized photo book OR custom URL to online archive gallery of your tweets & media, $39.99 Conceptual: Hashtag Bidding, sky's the limit Deep Tesla Integration for who knows wtf reasons, $$$ Twitter Phone, free for first year, $$$ / yr. thereafter
  • nnurmanov 4y ago
    This post should get an upvote
  • Finnucane 4y ago
    • dang 4y ago
      Can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? You've been doing that repeatedly, unfortunately. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. You've also been posting some better comments (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33534384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33534384 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33519411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33519411), so this should be easy to fix.
• erik_landerholm 4y ago
  It's a dumb idea, like most of Elon's ideas lately, imo.
• TechBro8615 4y ago
  Betting against the future success of Elon Musk, is it a wise decision?
• ironlake 4y ago
  The new badge doesn't include any ID verification. It just indicates you are a subscriber to Twitter Blue. The old badge will look different but operate the same way as old verification. So, in effect, the new badge is just flair on a more expensive, less featureful version of Twitter Blue. There are an estimated 100,000 current Twitter Blue subscribers and an estimated 400,000 verified accounts. If they all buy the new Twitter Blue for $8/month it will be $48 million in revenue. (And may actually lose Twitter money after app store cut from Google and Apple and with diminished advertising for those users.) It's confusing, poorly implemented, and not likely to impact the bottom line. Even if they kept all the revenue, didn't lose out on add sales, and the program cost nothing to implement and maintain, they would need 11 million subscribers every year just to pay the interest on the loans Musk used to buy Twitter. (11 mil * $96 = 1.06 bil) Probably better to focus on the advertisers.
  • WallyFunk 4y ago
    > It just indicates you are a subscriber to Twitter Blue. Well apparently they're now labeling accounts as 'official' so users can distinguish between a mere $8.00/mo tick versus a notable, official account.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• WallyFunk 4y ago
  > Paying for a badge instead of earning it beats the idea of social trust Well apparently they're now labeling accounts as 'official' so users can distinguish between a mere $8.00/mo tick versus a notable, official account. I'm going to sign up for it. If it means I'm not shadowbanned and get noticed in people's feeds more, then this is a win. Also Twitter Blue drastically separates the wheat from the chaff. People don't like spending good money to spam (unless I'm wrong, maybe there's a tonne of spammers leveraging Twitter Blue so they can spam).
  • HomePhone 4y ago
    >People don't like spending good money to spam lol. Oh sweet summer child. You have so much to learn.
• julienreszka 4y ago
  I think it was a wise decision, as it will help Twitter to monetize its platform in addition to the ads it already sells. It will also help to ensure that only those who are truly dedicated to using Twitter will be verified, which will in turn help to improve the quality of content on the site. Furthermore, it will likely bring in a significant amount of revenue for Twitter, which can be used to improve the site in various ways. Bots will also be less likely to be verified, which will help to reduce spam on the site.