Twitter’s newest “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” has yet again changed the price of the Twitter Blue subscription which was expected to jump from $4.99 a month to $19.99 a month. Musk has made up his mind to now sell Blue at an $8 per month subscription cost.
The new price will also be adjusted by country according to purchasing power parity according to Musk. There are changes coming to Twitter Blue as well, with 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 under Musk on Tuesday.
The new Twitter owner had ordered Twitter employees on Sunday to raise Twitter Blue’s subscription cost to $19.99. As for employees working on the project, Musk’s order was to complete the project by November 7 or be fired.
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.
The reason for this price hike and subsequent drop seems to be the outrage among Twitter users, especially verified ones. Following a tweet from Stephen King calling out the price hike, Musk responded by stating that they have to pay the bills somehow and suggested the new $8 price further adding that he’ll explain the rationale behind the change in the longer form before it’s implemented.
It’s no news that Musk has a problem with bots and troll accounts on the platform. It was after all the primary reason why he tried to back out of his controversial $44 billion deal to buy the platform in the first place. As he tries to completely revamp the verification system and content moderation policies on the platform, Musk believes this is the only way to “defeat the trolls and bots”.
While making verification paid on the platform will make it easier for fake accounts or scammers to impersonate other people, Musk hopes that this change will “raise the cost of crime” on Twitter has verified accounts as verified accounts will be removed if they engage in any spams or scams. However, in case a verified account opts out of paying and loses their verification status, there will be no verified account to cross reference a fake verified account if the situation arises.
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