Elon Musk has unveiled his Twitter strategy, revealing, among other things, that the blue badge on the app will cost $8 per month.
This is a decrease from previous reports of $20 per month attributed to company employees.
Musk stated that the price will be adjusted based on a country’s purchasing power parity to expand Twitter’s paid subscription, Twitter Blue, globally. Musk compares the social network’s current verification system to a “lords and peasants” system.
More benefits for verified users
Musk also noted some of the features that will roll out with this new plan, including fewer ads, priority in replies, which verified handles get through the “Verified” notification channel mentions and search, and the ability to post longer videos than the current limit of 2 minutes 20 seconds.
In a Twitter thread announcing the new plan, Elon Musk said:
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month. Price adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”
You will also get priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeating spam/scams; the Ability to post long videos & audio; Half as many ads; And paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us.
This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators. Yes, this will destroy the bots. If a paid Blue account engages in spam/scam, that account will be suspended. Essentially, this raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude, he added.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022