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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.
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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