Elon Musk floats $8 Twitter subscription that includes verification

People in my circles reflexively hate anything if it comes from Musk, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this ... actually sounds like an appealing offer.

Throw in better video compression for us artists and might actually buy it.

Fact is, verification has been horribly broken for a long time on Twitter and despite what people WITH the checkmarks say, it really is a big old status symbol. There are a lot of victims of impersonation out there — for years — so the pearl clutching over it all of a sudden feels disingenuous.

For $8/month you can get Twitter Blue; payment == verification of identity; how long before Twitter Blue members demand/are given the option for non-Blue members to even see their content much less interact with them?

It's either an ingenious way to get rid of all of the bots or a way to do away with anonymous accounts on Twitter. Or both.

Not a bad idea. Make existing bluechecks pay to stay verified, and you make it cringe -> no one wants to pay. But if you verify everyone who has Twitter Blue, then existing bluechecks won't want to be left out, and will pay up.

Using this revenue to overcompensate creators will be the perfect TikTok/Youtube Shorts killer.