Twitter Reportedly Plans to Charge $20 a Month for Verified Accounts | Hacker News Reader

Twitter Reportedly Plans to Charge $20 a Month for Verified Accounts

cnet.com

20 pointsembit35 comments

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33400828

This is a good idea. Seek rent from brands already on the platform and clear out all the people who got a checkmark purely as a status symbol.

Then the checkmark can be used to bifurcate two social classes with different Twitter rights.

I believe Twitter has two types of content: PR and comments. The problem is they both look like tweets and have equal standing on the platform. PR is the valuable part of Twitter and comments are, well, comments. Most newspapers and blogs (the antiquated PR publishing mechanisms) already learned comments aren't worth the trouble. Now Twitter can make the distinction too.

For example, if you're not paying to be part of the influencer class, your comments could be hidden by default. The influencer class can also have a more stringent code of conduct, making it easier to ban people abusing their megaphone. All without stepping into 'free speech' debates with Incredibly Online keyboard warriors, who will mostly be on free accounts and themselves have what they deem to be 'free speech'.

For me, I find its largest value for things like journalism. Being able to know it's the real reporter, and not a parody account. That's not a "brand",it's not "PR", nor is it an "influencer". The value is to me, the consumer.

I think the journalist using Twitter as their platform are doing it for PR, brand and for being influencers... So I feel it is right to charge them for using it as marketing tool. Just like anyone else.

Although from what I can tell verifying journalists is at least somewhat arbitrary once you get beyond big names and pubs. I do some amount of writing for trade press etc. and I was rejected in spite of my account being impersonated the week before (and the impersonator being banned).

I think the modern manifestation of journalist is an influencer, with an individual brand, who can support their journalism through their brand. Rather than needing to clan up with a newspaper and take editorial orders from the newspaper execs.

It's pretty easy to buy-in to all journalists being influencers, but it leaves open the question how do we make sure all influencers aren't journalists. What code or standard do journalists adhere to to elevate themselves over baseline influencer, broadly speaking. That's an open question and one I hope gets answered eventually...

For sure man, give easy ($) access to favorable treatment and reach to accounts interested in self-promotion. Sounds like a really good outcome for the platform, what we need is MORE ads nested in the feed.

This seems like a tiny change that will affect basically no one except for celebs and politicians and corporations. Can anyone explain why this matters? So <insert wealthy individual or group here> will have to pay or lose a blue mark?

If verification is open to everyone, you could in theory have a toggle for “verified users only” feed which would fix the bot problem.

Maybe, but is that the plan (make it open to everyone)? And even then, will any normal people actually pay 240USD a year just to not be easily filtered out? I am a well off western tech junky and I won't feel any need to break out my credit card.

At best this seems like a nice way to charge very rich or corporate backed users for the service twitter currently gives them for free...

You're not the target market. Also "very rich" is not defined as spending $20/mo lmao.

I don't think this is aimed at your average users. But instead of those whose Twitter profiles and posts are part of their identity. And I'm all for charging them for it.

I also kind of see the blue mark as being a benefit to Twitter more than anyone else, before the blue mark existed, people just kind of new which account was "the account", then the check mark was introduced, probably to prevent fraud, imposters etc; However, this is why I see it as being important to Twitter, it made their platform safer and therefor more valuable.

I don't see why people would pay for this?

I also felt like saying, maybe just for fun, that I feel Twitter was better without the check marks, it felt like everyone was equal, that was nice.

I think for a lot of corporate accounts, they want the blue tick so their advertising is clearly from them. When Sony Tweets about the PS6 they want it to be clear it's a "real" tweet. Really, it's just advertising, Sony is not a person it's a corporation, it has no opinions or thoughts. So to them the blue tick might be worth 240USD/y.

The same logic applies for most managed accounts I think: politicians are basically the same with the exception of 1% who actually run their own accounts (for better or worse). The other 99% are basically just advertising their campaign, whipping votes etc.

Letting Sony or <boring senator number 37> have an account gains twitter nothing really, it's actually costing them advertising probably since such corps can tweet for free. That's my cynical opinion at least.

For people providing actual useful information (I couldn't think of an example but someone else suggested scientists) I think you're right that it's worth more to Twitter to clearly mark them than to the individual themselves. Maybe they can add a free tier for people with .ac emails and accredited media orgs?

journalists, scientific experts, etc. they are going to be less well funded than a celeb, and the value of the checkmark in those circumstances is more for the consumer than the account.

As another HN commenter pointed out, it allows the blue mark to stratify Twitter into two classes of users: the "distinguished verified users" which now directly fund Twitter, and the proles which provide nothing but eyes for ad revenue. Monetizing verified users turns them into a "voter base" that Twitter must explicitly cater to in order to continue receiving benefits. If you're paying $20/mo, you damn sure expect that your tweets will reach the largest possible audience. And if you don't pay up, well, tough luck.

Basically, it sets up the platform for "All speech is free, but some speech is more free than others."

It kind of seems to me that the average verified user would not likely pay $20 a year to retain their checkmark. Am I off base here? I don't "do twitter" all that much so perhaps others who do and have verified accounts can comment on this.

I feel like there are LOTS of people who would pay $20/mo for a checkmark. Basically anyone calling themselves a marketer, promoter, influencer, etc.

You definitely have a category for whom being able to get a blue check mark was sort of a validation that their opinions matter too. Many of those will likely drop while brands, would be influencers, many journalists, politicians, mainstream celebrities will pay the basically trivial amount that they would now be able to more easily get.

Yeah, a rise in price results in decreased demand. They think they'll increase revenue and it probably will result in fewer blue checkmarks. Not sure what point you're making.

So will this lead to more sketchy accounts paying for the tick making it anthetical to it's original purpose of verifying the "real person"?

This seems like a likely outcome imo

Doesn't that depend on how payment happens? If it can be used to verify the paying party. It should be also a positive way to do things.

Only if the process to get the "Verified" status changes.

Like when you pay $xx to renew a lost passport, it doesn't mean anyone with $xx can get a passport from your embassy

I imagine you'd have to meet the existing criteria in order to receive this option to pay. That being said, when the business's income begins to depend on this, the criteria are at risk of "softening". One could imagine a public "talk page" for Twitter accounts where the notability is discussed.

If the change is to increase revenue in any meaningful way, yes I think that will be the outcome. I highly doubt the "sanctity" of the blue check is worth turning down hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly revenue to anyone involved at Twitter. The idea of a verified account is already bastardized into becoming a status symbol rather than an ID verification.

> the blue check

I can see them adding different colors for different tiers. I actually think it's a good idea to do that. Companies, active politicians, journalists, medical professionals, educators and influencers can all have check marks with different colors.

And I bet Elon would like a special color for his account.

The “Exodus of the Bluechecks” was foretold…

https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#22

Great idea. It's high time that social networks build an alternate "serious" revenue stream than the ad-focussed user-data-harvesting one.

This might also lead to Twitter being more open like developer APIs with ecosystem of apps built on top (like mobile app stores). There would be less reasons to keep the gardens locked and walled when revenues are not tied to ad impressions and eyeballs.

If it got rid of ads completely, I'd sign up.

Do you get many ads on Twitter? I only get occasionally every few days a "promoted tweet" and just block the account sending them so they don't appear ever again.

I saw a mention of this last night and honestly I couldn't help but cringe inside.

What will the Twitter timeline look like when everyone has a little bird next to their name?

I am not saying the current system is ideal but fundamentally it will have to change because at the moment the verified badge is seen as a "novelty" part of Twitter's identity as a platform.

I don't think that it will be so that everyone that pays $20/month has a "little bird nest to their name". They want to charge $20/month to everyone with a verified mark, according to the article: "the report states that Twitter is planning to charge $20 for a new Twitter Blue subscription, and that blue checkmarks will be lost to users if they don't pay up."

Honestly you cringed inside over this? Give me a break. People with exaggerated emotions are exactly the problem with twitter.

All the people downvoting me must feel pretty stupid right about now.

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