After announcing that the Twitter Blue program will be $7.99 moving forward, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has revealed that the subscription service will ‘hopefully’ be coming to India next month. Additionally, Musk has also seemed to push the launch date from November 7 to November 9 in anticipation of the US midterm elections.
The New York Times reports seeing an internal memo from the company sent by a manager working on the project stating that they’ve “made the decision to move the launch of this release to Nov. 9, after the election.” Musk’s previous order to employees working on the project was to get it ready for launch by November 7 or be fired.
Changes to Twitter blue affect more than just the service’s price. Users can now get verified easily by subscribing to the service as well as priority in replies, mentions and searches, That said, access to ad-free articles, a rather useful feature in Twitter Blue, was removed from the subscription on Tuesday.
Musk claims that the price will be adjusted by country according to purchasing power parity, Twitter hasn’t officially announced the subscription cost for the service’s Indian launch but adjusting for the purchasing power parity will put the subscription at around ₹185 per month.
Twitter Blue’s hiked price has been a topic of controversy since it was first announced to be $20. From there the price dropped to $7.99 with Musk stating that they have to pay the bills somehow further adding that he’ll explain the rationale behind the change in the longer form before it’s implemented.
The new subscription is also a requirement for anyone looking to keep their verification badges on Twitter. However, as Casey Newton pointed out in his report, the subscription cost will likely remain at $4.99 for any accounts that have already been verified. Verified users would have 90 days after the plan goes live to subscribe or lose their verification checkmarks.
In the News: Chinese factory lockdowns to affect iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max wait times
