Listen, by now we’re all aware that Mr. Elon Musk is a very controversial dude, but let’s just get it out there that his flagged paid verification program is a complete joke. If you were asked to spell “duh,”  it’d be way longer. While we can try to potentially understand the logic, the execution just bulldozes all attempts at calling the initiative ‘workable’.

300K Coverup

Okay, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt – Twitter was losing an estimated $4 million a day, which ultimately led to Musk’s ‘The Great Culling’. In a bid to help stabilize the company’s finances, the idea of paid verification does make sense, while Musk also extrapolated the need for immediate cash into a pathway to combat bots. In other words, Musk wants to use paid verifications to tell apart ‘real humans’ because the idea is that bots can’t pay and that bot peddlers won’t afford to at scale.

Optimistically speaking, okay, fine, you get a pass, Chief Twit. Realistically, it just isn’t rational because most people won’t pay, especially without offering anything particularly good in return—a colored checkmark next to your username? Yeah, definitely worth $8. At the same time, selling ticks, as opposed to earning them by meeting the necessary requirements, just expunges their exclusivity and value.

The Information reports:

“Around 180,000 people in the US were paying for subscriptions to Twitter, including Twitter Blue, as of mid-January, or less than 0.2% of monthly active users […] The U.S. number is about 62% of Twitter’s global subscriber total, the document says, which implies Twitter has 290,000 global subscribers.”

This has been consistent with the findings of researcher Travis Brown, who’s been posting regular updates on Twitter Blue subscriber numbers, based on searches of users that show up as ‘blue_verified’ in the back end. Presently, based on Brown’s figures, Twitter’s new Blue program looks to have around 300,000 subscribers, similar to what The Information has seen.

That would mean that Twitter is currently bringing in an extra $2.4 million per month, which is pretty good since it gives the platform the extra income that is so desperately needed. Despite this, Twitter is still quite a way off from its preferred subscription revenue intake. 300k sign-ups is also just 0.12% of its active user base, meaning that it’s nowhere near close to meeting goals. It wouldn’t even serve as a viable bot disincentive.

The Wrap

Maybe we’re missing something here. This is Elon Musk we’re talking about. It could be that Twitter Blue subscribers have reached 300k, but it’s just difficult to imagine how subscriptions would be one of Twitter’s core financial anchors, because, again, why would people pay for it, right? Numbers may grow higher in the next few months, but don’t count on them taking flight any time soon.

Sources

http://bit.ly/3x0GhX0