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Some better takes on this from what I've seen:

https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/1587381512500125699

> If one in five current blue ticks paid $20 a month that would raise just under $15 million a year for Twitter…Twitter’s current revenues (mostly from ads) are $5 billion a year. Musk’s apparent plan would generate about 30 hours’ worth of annual revenue.

https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1587509202401927168

> Absolutely no one should pay $8 or $20 a month to support Elton Murk's latest scam. Asking low-income Twitter users to pay $92 a year so their tweets don't get hidden and deprioritized alongside bots is not giving "power to the people."



"It elicits shrieks because it’s more about leveling the playing field than making money."


How does adding a new subscription feature and changing verification checkmarks to "secondary tags" level the playing field? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587527711228149765


Because previously you had to be blessed to get a bluecheck, now you just have to pay. Way more people have the means to pay than were blessed.


But the "blessed" keep their unique status with the "secondary tag." Everybody knows that's the checkmark.


If you look at any politician account they now have a small flag and "official" below their name. 2 tiers have become 3.


Reposting your comment doesn't make it any more true.


Twitter is currently free.

This proposed subscription prioritizes content based on who can/decides to pay $8 a month.

How exactly is this leveling the playing field?


You already said that. Leveling the playfield would be having no distinguishing marks at all.


The 2nd comment above pretty much debunks that IMO. If you're paying money and given more visibility to your comments vs. non-paying users, this does the exact opposite.


It levels a few people and covers the rest of the field with potholes.


If one in five current blue ticks paid $20 a month that would raise just under $15 million a year for Twitter

Until suddenly there are yellow checkmarks available for $100/month, and red checkmarks available for $500/month, and enterprise-only green checkmarks for $5,000/month.


What percentage of "current" blue ticks convert is not material since the TAM is about to become every Twitter user.

And the offering is not just about verification, but other Blue features. Personally I have no interest in a blue check, but I'd happily pay $8/month to remove ads (unfortunately only half the ads will be removed in this iteration).


not that i think this is some brilliant revenue strategy but it does not strike me as a good take to automatically assume that the current blue check mark base is a strict superset of who will pay $8/month


He's really gotten in over his head on this one.

https://twitter.com/CMacCaba/status/1585914462951047168

> Musk has dumped $13bn of debt onto Twitter's company account, increasing the interest repayments from $51m to $1bn a year. Its entire gross income is c. $700m a year. Its net income is negative & it doesn't receive gov. subsidies that kept similarly loss-making Telsa alive

A longer thread informative thread here too: https://twitter.com/aidanpobrien/status/1587450510549852160


> Asking low-income Twitter users to

I'm curious how many low-income Twitter users now have a blue-check.




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