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Comment by dclusin | Hacker News Reader

I think this is smart. The blue checkmark is in practice just a symbol of vanity. That you're a genuine somebody, worthy of extra verification. There are so many self-important people in life and on social media that think they are in a class above everybody else, I bet a large percentage of these not noteworthy but need to be verified people will happily pay for it.

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>The blue checkmark is in practice just a symbol of vanity. That you're a genuine somebody, worthy of extra verification.

Absolutely. But if anyone who pays $20/month can get a blue checkmark, it is no longer the status symbol you describe and its appeal totally disappears.

The verification process doesn't change, you just need to pay for it.

From the article:

>The directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users

Sure sounds like they’re planning on giving blue checks to anyone willing to pay. It wouldn’t make financial sense otherwise; there are currently only around 300k verified users, so this would only generate a maximum of $6M/month in revenue.

Of course it changes. They're outsourcing the verification to the payment processing company.

If anyone can get a blue checkmark, verification can become way simpler. It turns from "is this person actually notable, and is the user behind this account actually this notable person" to "does the name on the ID provided by this user match their account name". It goes from a subjective process requiring manual review to one that can be automated with off the shelf tools (if you wanted to get really basic, "does the name verified on this person's credit card match their account name")

Good? Why are there people who think it should be a status symbol, to by recognized by twitter staff of all people as "noteworthy?" It's ridiculous and more than a little pathetic that people considered it a valid status symbol to begin with, and it should be dismantled as such. It's not called a "status symbol and we like this person mark" it's called "verified".

If anything it has become the opposite. “Blue checkmarks” is almost a slur these days.

Depends a lot on which crowd you're in. I certainly use it negatively every time i bring it up, as do my friends. But to them it really is a status symbol.

I've definitely seen people devote their twitter stream for weeks at a time to advocating for getting a blue checkmark. Among certain crowds it is 100% a status symbol.

It is definitely not. And it comes with pack of tools that allow you to manage harassment a bit more effectively.

Good for everyone else, potentially.

Not really great for the strategy of charging for it, if they think that the blue checkmark is going to be a valuable part of charging for Twitter. The second it's available to the general public, it loses 99% of its value and doesn't really do anything to serve it's purpose of making Twitter Blue / paid twitter more attractive.

Considering verified accounts are less than 1% of twitter, there is a lot more upside to average Joe paying $20/mo for it. Beyond status, it's a way for influencers to communicate they are the official accounts for their followers.

There is implicit lying by omission, in your favor, in these kinds of situations. You create value through scarcity but some won't know why the value is there, while others will take a long while to catch-on, giving you plenty of time to capitalize on the running-on-fumes value by lowering the scarcity.

Pay for a different badge exists in LinkedIn. Most people do not wear it as a status symbol, and it doesnt get such treatment from non paying members. The current value of check mark is a proof of a person's influence vs the proposed one means I can spend $20 this month

Telegram recently launched a very similar feature to the verified checkmark

https://telegram.org/blog/700-million-and-premium

And it depends on existing verified pages (you get verified by.. having two other verified social network accounts). If you can pay to get one of those, that's half of the job done for 20$.

Telegram Premium does not at all depend on your other social profiles, it’s $5/mo. Maybe they have a separate verification feature? (Edit: yep https://telegram.org/verify )

Telegram premium adds a star to your name rather than a check mark. It only signals you paid for premium.

Beyond celebrity it addressed the issue of impersonation - which will return as a problem

Anybody famous enough to warrant a special verification process can probably afford $20/mo.

No. It's not about being famous or money. It is about the original reason the verification process emerged - harassment and impersonation.

Twitter was so so much better without the checkmark, it went down hill from there.

I liked it was it was people, pretty anomalous Tweeting. That was an exciting time.

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