$20 per month for Twitter Blue?
Elon Musk as Chief Twit recently shared plans to charge $20 per month for access to Twitter Blue. This would include among other things the coveted blue verification tick.
A lot of Twitter users were quick to balk at the fee.
Twitter has been free to use for a long time, even for verification. Twitter primarily earns revenue from advertisers on the platform, and from data access fees.
The current Twitter Blue was the attempt to generate revenue directly from users. The signup rate has been a little lack luster, but the lure of the blue check mark, may be enough to entice many users.
Before the new program was even launched, came news that the price has been reduced to $8 per month. Seems more reasonable of an increase from the current $5 per month.
The roll out has started. An update has been pushed to the Apple app store, with some details of the new pricing and expected features. The plan is not available in all cities, and is still unclear exactly how the whole process works.
The acquisition of Twitter has been in the works for months, yes it's been on, off, on, off and finally on again, but it seems like no real plans have been made until Elon was installed as the new owner.
Yes some things require that you wait, but but some pretty big things (what is free speech?) could and should have been figured out by now, and shared with users, advertiser and investors.
These things wouldn't change the day-to-day operations inside of Twitter (immediately) but they would let everyone know where the ship is headed.
Advertisers have put a pause on their spend, users are concerned about what content they will be allowed to post and what content they will be shown based on what is free speech.
Nobody likes uncertainty, especially in a advertising driven platform.
I don't know if Elon powered Twitter will be a success or a crash and burn, but the fact that nobody (not even just the users) seems to know what the direction is here, is worrying at best.
People are flocking to other platforms like Mastadon, and might be an opportunity for Deso to finally have its day. I don't know if any of them will get the network effect required to become a significant challenger to Twitter, but if I was Elon I'd be worried.
Let's not forget using Twitter will be free.
There are certain features that "power" users would be willing to pay for. Nothing in Twitter blue (even the blue checkmark) seems to be on the list that power users are asking for.
I'm more likely to pay $8/mo than $20/mo but even then it will depend on what features that enables. I hope to find out exactly what that is soon.
