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The blue tick earlier would be handed out by Twitter manually to verified public figures at no extra cost.
It is to be noted that Musk emphasised there would be region-wise pricing, depending upon the purchasing power of the population. So the Twitter blue tick price in India may be lower than the $8 announced for the US. The details on region-wise pricing are yet to be elaborated.
Musk started the thread by taking a dig at the current "lords" and "peasants" on Twitter (verified and unverified users, respectively), and mocked the current system of verification, which is still considered to be a novelty by many. The blue tick initially was awarded manually by Twitter to public figures after a check but free of cost.
Initially, the reports suggested that the premium Twitter feature could cost $20, but given the ongoing backlash, the CEO appears to have reconsidered things and the adjusted price is now down to $8. Elon himself admits that the price has been adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.
With the premium $8 Twitter feature, users will not only get the coveted blue tick, but will also get prioritised replies, mentions, and search, something which will potentially defeat spam/scam. Furthermore, users will be able to post long videos and audio. The paying customers will now also have to see half as many ads.
For publishers, paying $8 would mean getting the ability to add a paywall to their content. All this would essentially mean that Twitter would be able to generate a revenue stream, which Musk has said will be used to reward content creators on the platform.
For those who already have a verified handle on Twitter and are worrying about losing the significance, there will be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, so all hope is certainly not lost. However, whether a non-paying celebrity will lose the blue tick or not, is still not clear.
While Elon has not yet revealed as to when all of this will be made live, earlier reports suggested that he will not want to waste time, and has already asked the team to roll things out by November 7th. It also remains to be seen how the platform will be able to roll the "feature" out this quickly in countries like, say, India, wherein the Twitter Blue feature has not even been made live yet.