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No one answered my question last week, probably in part due to my posting it a full day after the OP's top-level comment, so I thought I'd post it again here. I'm really interested in the answer, if someone could steelman the new blue checkmark strategy and mechanics for me.
I still don't understand, what is the point of the blue checkmark in new Twitter? When I first heard about the $8 charge I thought it'd be a good idea. I thought it'd be a way for anyone to pay $8 for the service Twitter will perform to verify that you are who you say you are. I thought basically, you'd pay the $8, Twitter would assign someone to review your credentials, then you'd get the checkmark. This seemed like an improvement over the previous process because anyone could request a checkmark review as part of an after upon process, and you're also helping to fund the work it will take to do it
Now I see on Twitter's site, it says explicitly:
If the point of verification and checkmarks are to prove that you are who you say you are, and now that verification process and proof no longer will happen, then what's the point? To prove that you have $8 to spend? Are people supposed to believe that accounts that get the new blue checkmark are authentic, when no verification actually happened? It's so confusing.
Please correct me if any aspect of my understanding is incorrect. If the new system really does make sense, I'd be glad and would like to know why. Could anyone steelman it? As it stands it seems just like an attempt to have a one time cash-in on a new mechanism that's going to ultimately destroy the credibility of the blue check system entirely.
Part of the reason that people are careful in answering is because of the elephant in the room. Elon is occasionally does really dumb stuff and people try to explain it with 4D-chess when in fact it is just him being an idiot. To be clear, he is not an idiot in everything, but he is not the smartest person either. My guess that he is slightly above average. The direct order of giving a blue check to anyone with an iPhone and $8 to spare, maybe he didn't think it through.
But my 4D-chess explanation: The reasons to destroy the blue checkmark are multiple. It carries too much power in turning off critical thinking and make bad tweets more notable than they actually are(Eli Lilly incident anyone, it is bullshit with that it raised awareness, campaigns around insulin price has been observed many times before). Also due to the extra blue checkmark functionality verified accounts have their echo chamber with the verified tab without the public able to correct bad takes.
I don't think it's 4d chess, but I also don't think it's necessarily just incompetence, or only his fault. I think someone that high up at a tech company isn't usually that connected to all the exact nuances of all the details all the time. In many ways, it's the job of a director to set a vision, and the job of his reports to disagree and push back when that vision doesn't work. He might have just said to his direct report, "let's make blue checks available to everyone and institute a charge for it, that way everyone can have it." And then his report filters it down the chain through his reports, etc, and there's 1000 separate engineers led by 100 managers who have to be involved because this touches hundreds of ingrained systems, all of them frantically trying to make this decision make sense, each in their own way for how it touches the services they own, and they have to frantically work out new contracts with the services their services touch, so it's like a wave of quick, probably bad, decisions impacting each other. Probably their fear of being on the chopping block if they can't deliver what the new boss says is another motivating factor. So eventually everyone tries to deliver SOMETHING, trying to make this old system make sense in the new edict, and as a result something nonsensical gets delivered.
And that what I've seen in other comments out there that 4D chess used in a disparaging way. Because we don't know how much intent exactly there is of this particular result. Of course it is a speculative way of reasoning of it.
Another way to reason for what happened here is that he is running experiments and don't take predictions on consequences because he believes that managements structure are afraid of change. It needs to play out to see what happens what works and what doesn't. "Elon Musk said Tuesday that he shut down a new verification program on Twitter just hours after it launched, saying the platform would “do lots of dumb things” in the coming months to see what is successful as the company tries to capture much-needed revenue, including potentially offering payment processing on the platform."
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Twitter themselves, before Musk entered the picture, changed the meaning of bluechecks so that they no longer meant verified, but also that Twitter considered them good people who deserved a bluecheck. With all the complaints over Musk, people keep forgetting that this happened (probably because it's a complaint about wokeness, which the media aren't going to signal-boost).
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The feature has been discontinued due to impersonation suddenly becoming much easier (who could have seen that coming) https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-real-and-what-isnt-on-twitter-under-elon-musk-it-is-really-unclear-11668184148
The first thing people see is the blue checkmark. Few are going to click through to see if it's an authentic verified account instead of a purchased one. It was a gimmick that was in theory supposed to help prevent scams and frauds, which, predictably, (at least as I and others said) made it worse. $8 no question asked auto-verification was insane. I am not surprised at all it was abused and soon discontinued.
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The bluecheck and the bluecheck privileges (priority in replies, bluecheck only feed, etc) should be separated. Have the former require a large, one-time fee to cover the cost of Twitter doing some due diligence, and have the latter be the subscription fee.
Verification being a recurring payment is so absurd on its face that it makes me think Musk is not as interested in making money from bluechecks as he is in destroying the bluecheck class.
Twitter employees were reportedly selling bluechecks for $15k..
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Being a "bluecheck" actually comes with several quality-of-life improvements to everyday Twitter use, and I believe there were more of these QoL improvements planned for future implementation. The purpose of these QoL improvements appears to be to encourage high-notoriety users to continue strengthening the network effect advantage Twitter has in the social media space.
Instead of giving those QoL improvements away for free to high-value users, Musk appears to have wanted to just charge for those QoL improvements.
The fact that this is all tangled up with "identity verification" is mostly a historical accident (though not entirely, as some of the QoL improvements are unimportant unless you're getting hundreds of DMs every day). Basically, Twitter as a product is kind of an emergent mishmash rather than being something that was carefully designed from the ground up. Musk, as someone who wasn't on the inside from the beginning, appears to have botched this by failing to notice the true nature of the product being peddled. "Our engineers have implemented product improvements we currently give away for free to a bunch of high-value users" immediately pinged to Musk as "why not sell those to everyone?"
Actually I don't think this is quite how it happened, simply because Musk himself said some things that made it sound like identity validation, rather than QoL improvements, was actually what was on offer. But that's the best steelman I can manage given my current understanding of Twitter. Still the nature of Musk's problem seems to be along these lines--not clearly knowing who is most benefiting whom, and how, makes it difficult to "extract value" in ways to which Musk is otherwise accustomed.
I think there's a steelman where the "if you're caught impersonating someone, and you probably will be caught if you do anything even moderately high-vis, you're out 8 USD and the iPhone and CC# you used no longer can buy from twitter" acts as a really weak attempt at crowd-sourced verification.
It's a lot less good from my perspective at verification than requiring a photo ID and a matching name on the credit card, but it does have advantages over the many failure modes of things like a Facebook Real Name Rule (eg, what happens if my legal name isn't the name I want to go by online? What happens if I don't have a photo ID or a credit card?) if Musk's longer-term goals revolved around Twitter Blue as a separate user level.
If you don't have a credit card, you wouldn't be very valuable as a subscriber. Do Twitter advertisers seek the non-credit carded cohort?
That's an interesting question. I've gotten a surprising number of advertisements for products that are not generally sold through online sales: Coke or Dr. Pepper can be paid for with credit cards, and people with credit cards are probably more likely to buy them (in the same way that they're more likely to buy anything), but I don't think it's something people would filter for in the way that subscription services could be.
((Of course, I'd always assumed soda advertisements before movies in theatres reflected a pay-for-play, so who knows.))
That said, I expect the more relevant case for Musk's perspective would be less a GiftCard-for-Twitter, and more the case where the account is getting its funds from an employer or a business, without having (or being trusted with, or wanting) a personal credit card.
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You can only have one Twitter Blue per Apple account. Apple accounts are a pain in the ass to obtain compared to Gmail or other accounts, and the closed apple ecosystem means you need an iPhone or a special emulator (not a free one like Bluestacks). Had they allowed it for Android instead of just iOS, it would have been a lot easier to make unlimited accounts.
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One of the new blue checkmarks might be an indication someone is not a Bot. It shows an investment in the community. Right now it's mostly used to troll people who think that a blue checkmark is a sign of authenticity, accuracy, and truthiness. But over time it could develop into something useful.
Or Musk is trying to bankrupt Twitter, has no idea what he's doing, or any of the above.
As a note, Tumblr is now selling not one, but two blue checkmarks for $7.99. They also stack, so there are some people running around with 28 checkmarks. Everyone on Tumbr thinks this is a grand idea, regardless of what utility they might get out of it. Why purchase a blue checkmark? Because it's amusing.
It made for great trolling ,but predictably it led to people impersonating companies and major public political figures, which went beyond comedy to actual economic and financial implications. It sucks that people abused it but not surprising either.
People trading based off of Twitter screenshots deserve everything they get.
Right? The takeaway here for me isn't "people said things on Twitter and it's bad that they were believed". It's "boy is it bad that people are stupid enough to make financial decisions based on social media posts".
Indeed, how is this not a great lesson in "don't blindly trust authority" (defined here as "people with shiny badges")?
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These were bots trading based on twitter sentiment. Lmao.
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exactly, pure spite, way to destroy the prestige value of old blue check and abolish the blue check holders as a class ;-)
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The point of the $8 checkmark is to eliminate the sumptuary laws that previously served to distinguish between nobles and commoners.
In a similar line of thinking, expect Musk to eliminate twitters Lese-Majeste laws. It may soon be legal to tell a journalist to learn to code or to describe a "public health expert" with an NPC meme.
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