It seems that Elon Musk is pretty adamant about users paying for the Twitter Blue monthly subscription. Aside from including perks for users who pay for Twitter Blue, Musk is also limiting access and perks to non-subscribers.
Twitter Blue Users Only
Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that starting on April 15th, only verified accounts will be able to qualify in For You recommendations. The tab dedicated to such tweets shows suggested content based on your interaction on Twitter.
According to Musk, it is the only "realistic" way to tackle the issue of AI bot swarms taking over Twitter feeds, and doing otherwise is a "hopeless losing battle." On top of that, voting in polls has been limited to Twitter Blue-subscribed users as well.
Ever since the Twitter Blue subscription has been made available internationally, the company announced that users with the check mark who aren't subscribed will lose the badge by April 1st, as mentioned in 9To5Mac.
For users who need the verification badge such as news accounts or public officials, they will have to pay $8 per month, and $11 if they are using iOS devices. This could be Musk's way to increase profits as Twitter is obviously not faring very well in valuation and other aspects.
Aside from the issues within the app, it seems that the company is collapsing in on itself under the leadership of the tech billionaire. It has lost more than half of its value based on Musk's $44 billion payment to acquire the company, which is now valued at $20 billion.
Contrary to what the CEO aims to achieve, the recent move could drive more users away since recommended tweets that appear are now basically paid for, and accounts that refuse to pay for the monthly subscription will be left out, which goes against Musk's "free speech" vision.
What Do You Actually Get by Subscribing?
Since Twitter is slowly becoming a pay-to-use app, maybe you need to know what it is you're paying for in case you decide to subscribe to Twitter Blue. Aside from having the verified badge, there are other exclusive perks you'll have access to.
For instance, Twitter Blue will let you access various colors for your app theme. For those who have been on Twitter over the years, you'll know that it was available before, which means that the feature is simply put behind a paywall.
You'll also be able to undo a tweet, which has been requested by many users in the past years even Musk took over. Users will be given an Undo period so the tweet can be retracted before it becomes viewable to the public.
Subscribers will also be granted more characters for their tweets. The standard character limit is 280. Being a verified account will allow you to tweet with more than 4,000 characters without having to create a thread.
There's also the Reader feature that lets you read threads with less noise. Blue users can upload longer videos with a duration of up to an hour, although it's only available for the web, the file size cannot exceed 2 GB, and it is limited to 1080p.
