Twitter's been hawking its Twitter Blue subscription since the tail end of 2022. The blue check, once a badge of honor reserved for Twitter users of high public interest, can now be purchased by anyone willing to pay $8 a month.
However, according to Mashable, Twitter Blue hasn't been doing so hot, predicting that Twitter is only pulling $28 million a year with the new subscription model — and that's actually an optimistic estimate.
To make Twitter Blue more attractive, it seems like Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, is coming up with a new tactic: strip away all the fun features and make them exclusive to blue-checked users.
3 things you can't do if you're an unverified Twitter user
In a March 27 tweet, Elon Musk announced new restrictions that will take place for non-paying users.
1. You can no longer vote in polls. Twitter Polls are one of the most engaging aspects of the social media platform. It lets Twitter personalities to interact with their followers and collect feedback from users. It also allows people to contribute their two cents on a variety of topics. Unfortunately, non-Blue users will no longer be able to vote in polls.
2. Your tweets will no longer land in users' 'For You' feeds. In other words, Twitter will no longer recommend non-Blue users' content. If you want this benefit, you'll have to subscribe to Twitter Blue to ensure that your tweets get more visibility across the social media landscape.
3. You can't edit tweets. This feature has been a limitation for non-Blue users before Musk's March 27 tweet, but it's such a highly desired perk, we figured it was worth mentioning. Verified Twitter users, on the other hand, get a 30-minute window to make changes to published tweets.
For a complete list of all the cool features that Twitter Blue subscribers have access to, click here.
What's Musk's reasoning behind why he wants to yank these features away from non-Blue subscribers? He said that this is the "only realistic way to address advanced AI bots swarms taking over." Do we believe him? Not really. As 9to5Mac pointed out, all you need to become a blue-checked Twitter user is a valid phone number, which isn't exactly the best vetting process to keep the "AI bot swarms" at bay.
Musk says these new restrictions will take place on April 15.
