Those verified active users are the lifeblood of the platform, but there can't be that many of them to justify rolling unnecessary obstacles in front of them.
It’s nothing other than making people pay for a status symbol.
They bring money to Twitter how exactly? That whole "verified" scheme was always a joke, given who gets to be verified or unverified. Either it's about real identities or it's a worthless ideology approval badge.
They draw an audience to the platform and they tweet things that journalists want to write about which is free advertising for Twitter that draws more of an audience.