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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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?

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...

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.

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

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."

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