Twitter’s April overhaul highlights Elon’s revenue-driving plan — but could backfire
Blue-check anxiety… Big changes are coming soon to the blue bird. On Tuesday, Twitter boss Elon Musk said that, starting April 15, only verified subscribers (think: people who pay $7/month for blue check marks) will have their posts recommended to others in the “For You” stream. Read: non-paying users’ posts will be shown only to their followers.
No viral: After backlash, yesterday Elon added that accounts you follow will also be shown in For You. But it sounds like posts from non-paying users that you don’t follow won’t be featured — meaning it’ll be nearly impossible for those users to go viral.
No vote: Non-paying users also won’t be able to vote in polls starting on April 15 (that “privilege” will be reserved for Twitter Blue subscribers).
No check: Last week Twitter said it would remove the verified status of “legacy accounts” (think: pre-Elon-era checks) starting April 1 — unless those folks pay up.
Hard PaaS… The new Twitter Blue sounds like paying for “popularity as a service” (some are getting roasted on Twitter for subscribing). But it’s all part of Elon’s revenue-driving and bot-fighting plan. Twitter’s ad sales are sagging and growth has been tough, so Musk’s trying to diversify revenue with subs. Yet the blue-check benefit of Twitter Blue wasn’t enough to attract droves of users willing to pay $7/month. Now Elon’s raising the stakes.
Revenue chasers can chase people away… Twitter’s chasing subscription revenue with Blue-exclusive perks, but not by adding perks — it’s doing it by taking away long-standing features from existing users. Tweeters are used to blue check marks, voting in polls, and having their posts recommended for free. Removing those could backfire by alienating users.