Twitter on Wednesday enabled the Twitter Blue for its users from US, UK and few other countries. The Twitter Blue service, which allows users to have a verified badge for free, costs $7.99 in the United States.
Some Twitter users in India are anxiously waiting as it is yet to roll out in India. It is expected to be widely available in India in the coming days.
It has been speculated that the service is likely to cost Rs 719 per month in India and the iPhone users will be offered the service first
The price estimation for India has been done on the basis of Elon Musk's announcement where he stated that the price of the Twitter Blue service outside the US would depend on the purchasing power in the respective countries. And it has been quite evident that the price in India would be way lower than that of the US.
The Twitter Blue service allows the users to have the Blue Tick of verification without undergoing any actual verification.Alongside, the users are also going to enjoy priority in reach and display on Twitter, according to the new owner of the microblogging site, Elon Musk.
With that price, he said, users will also get priority in replies, mentions, and searches, which he said is essential to defeating spam/scams, as well as the ability to post long video and audio, half as many ads, and paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with the social media company.
Rollout of the service has faced a fair share of criticism and skepticism so far from the netizens. Many have openly denounced the decision as it would make verification badge available for all sorts of users who may misuse the privilege.
Musk, however, asserted that if anyone misuses Twitter Blue, they will forfeit their money and their accounts will be permanently suspended.
While announcing, Twitter’s new owner billionaire Elon Musk blasted the "current lords and peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark”, using an expletive.
“Power to the people! Blue for USD 8 per month,” he tweeted adding that the price is adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.
He said the monthly payments from users for the blue tick “will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators”.
(With PTI Inputs)
