The serial entrepreneur has been dominating media coverage since completing the Twitter deal.
Elon Musk has established himself in recent months as one of the most influential personalities in the world.
He is the richest man in the world with an estimated net wealth of $204 billion as of Nov. 1 by Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He is involved in five companies, each of which is a disruptor in their respective sector of activity. The three best-known companies are electric vehicle maker Tesla (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc. Report, aerospace company SpaceX and newly acquired Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter Inc. Report.
This last firm arouses a lot of passions because of its place in the public discourse. Twitter is considered by some included Musk to be the de facto Town Square of our time. The platform has a considerable influence on the issues of our daily lives and is also the reflection or the thermometer of society.
On Twitter, politicians, artists, visionaries, disruptors, creators, entrepreneurs and main street meet and discuss various topics.
Blue Badge
Despite all this influence, the social network does not generate much income. It is even a dwarf financially compared to Youtube, Instagram and Facebook which are major sources of income for their respective parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) – Get Alphabet Inc. Report and Meta Platforms (META) – Get Meta Platforms Inc. Report.
Even TikTok, the popular social network among consumers and advertisers, completely eclipses Twitter when it comes to revenue.
As a new owner and given the huge $44 billion check he signed, Musk has been looking for ways to generate revenue for the past few days. He decided that subscriptions were the best way to get the platform back on the path to profitability.
Users will have to pay for the verification of their accounts. Currently, the service, which uses small blue badges to indicate that a person’s or brand’s account is genuine, is free. Verification will be part of Twitter Blue, a paid plan that offers additional features for heavy Twitter users.
Subscription to Blue was $4.99 a month before Musk. The billionaire has just decided to increase the price to $8 monthly and to reinvent the product to attract creators and help publishers.
Blue badges, used mostly by brands, governments, celebrities or journalists, will be part of the paid features starting next week. Blue subscribers will also have priority in replies, mentions & search, ability to post long video and audio, and half as many ads, the billionaire said.
To better drive home the idea of charging for the blue badge, Musk said it’s also a way to weed out spam bots, or fake accounts, that are one of Twitter’s biggest problems. He explained that the financial cost should discourage entities and people running bot farms that regularly spread social media misinformation and misinformation and hate speech.
“Essentially, this raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude,” Musk said on Nov. 1.
‘Complainers’
But this did not convince the detractors. This decision to charge for the blue badge or to have one’s account verified continues to draw many negative comments from personalities such as science fiction writer and horror novelist Stephen King.
Musk’s critics believe there was another way to ensure that the person behind an account is not a bot.
“This is complete nonsense,” commented David “JoelKatz” Schwartz, CTO at Ripple. “The current cost of crime on Twitter is how difficult it is to hack a blue check account. That will get *way* easier under this proposal if this is even slightly successful.”
“Blue ticks are seen as a sign of authority or expertise . You shouldn’t be able to buy a sign of expertise. It’s like buying a fake degree,” criticized another Twitter user.
Negative comments like this have been raining down ever since Musk made his Nov. 1 announcements. These criticisms are also fueled by the fact that there are fears that the serial entrepreneur, a “free speech absolutist,” will ease the content policy and allow hate speech on Twitter.
Personalities close to Democrats and associations for the defense of minority groups also fear that the billionaire will reactivate the accounts of members of extremist and racist movements like QAnon and other fans of conspiracy theories.
The tech tycoon seems fed up and has just provided a clear and definitive answer to his detractors.
“To all complainers, please continue complaining, but it will cost $8,” he posted on Nov 1.
He added: “Totally stole idea of charging for insults & arguments from Monty Python tbh.”
His detractors, however, continued to press their criticisms.
“It seems you have no idea how to manage a social network. You are about to destroy twitter by giving everyone a blue check,” commented a Twitter user.
