Despite it not being their stated purpose, they absolutely were a bit of a status symbol, though one that waned as more of them were given out of course. People

Despite it not being their stated purpose, they absolutely were a bit of a status symbol, though one that waned as more of them were given out of course. People routinely complained (both jokingly and seriously) about not being verified. It's not that rich and famous people needed the tiny bit of bonus (though some of them probably did), but that it was a marker of notability for less famous people. It's kind of like appearing in a crossword clue. The thing about putting the badge into Twitter Blue is that it makes it not a status symbol: both because it's just generally accessible (so even what little cachet you might agree it previously implied is now gone) and because for many you might see "enthusiastic about Elon Twitter" as an negative signal. There's a whole separate axis to this where it was clearly easier to get verified as a mainstream journalist than for many other kinds of professions or claims to fame (understandable both just under the basic "verification" goals and for presumably being pretty easy to actually verify as such things go). Much "anti-blue-check" sentiment is just the same familiar fights over the media, simply filtered through Twitter's systems.