From BZ/afp
Twitter began rolling out its controversial new paid subscription on Saturday.
“Starting today, there are great new features in Twitter Blue,” said an update that was initially offered only for iPhones. Accordingly, a monthly subscription to the paid offer will cost $7.99 (around eight euros) a month in the future, instead of $4.99 as before. The update was ordered by new Twitter owner Elon Musk following his takeover.
The new subscription should be a prerequisite for Twitter customers to verify their user accounts with the blue tick in the future. In addition, Blue subscribers should enjoy other benefits, such as significantly less advertising.
Twitter’s director of product development, Esther Crawford, explained that while the new Blue version isn’t live yet, updates are already beginning “because we’re testing changes and rolling them out in real-time.”
On Friday, multi-billionaire Musk laid off around half of his 7,500 employees. Musk had already fired Twitter management immediately after the takeover. Musk took over Twitter last Thursday for $44 billion.
Musk made transforming Twitter Blue a priority. According to reports, employees worked day and night on the task in order to be able to meet the start date of November 7th.
So far, user accounts from politicians, celebrities, journalists and organizations, for example, have been verified and marked with a blue tick in the standard offer without asking for money.