Celebrities aren’t too hot on Elon Musk’s latest revenue idea for Twitter. The billionaire recently proposed charging users $20 per month to become verified users with a blue check mark. “Fuck that, they should pay me,” tweeted horror phenom Stephen King, who added that he disagrees with the entire premise of the plan, which effectively requires people with major followings to pay for the opportunity to generate content for the website. In response to the outrage, Musk defended the idea and then floated dropping the price to $8. “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?” he asked, later clarifying that the additions would include priority in replies, mentions and searches, along with half as many ads and the ability to post long video and audio.“It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls,” Musk tweeted.Users pointed out that the expansion of the platform’s verification system would only generate $15 million a year for the site, worth about 30 hours of the platform’s annual ad revenue.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
