What X gets mocked for is that the feature of being "verified" by Twitter was worth paying for. But X turned the "blue tick" into "this person has paid" which totally removed any value for the blue tick.
It was yet another self-own, along with things like getting promoted on the feed.
X could have made money by selling features (eg tweetdeck) and other useful things, but they didnt.
Of course, then politcally it became a "this person is a MAGA person" so Musk had to start handing out "free" blue ticks to big accounts to avoid that appearance. To the point that people were putting in their name "didn't pay for blue"
But they did. Nobody pays for X premium just to get a blue tick. Being verified I guess is part of it, but they're paying to get other things including less ads, Grok access, longer posts & videos, communities, media studio, monetization, and other things.
The blue tick doesn't cause the reply boost. The paid plan level does, from small to large boost. Blue tick means you supplied a valid phone and credit card - a strong indicator of a genuine account.
I'm trying it to check out Grok, which is impressive now that it can handle current events and return posts and web links.
On the negatives, they claim "download videos" as a feature of paid plans. This is false advertising. Many videos cannot be downloaded. The uploader must specifically set the video as downloadable, and many do not. X is deliberately misleading about this. It was a key reason I paid.
It was yet another self-own, along with things like getting promoted on the feed.
X could have made money by selling features (eg tweetdeck) and other useful things, but they didnt.
Of course, then politcally it became a "this person is a MAGA person" so Musk had to start handing out "free" blue ticks to big accounts to avoid that appearance. To the point that people were putting in their name "didn't pay for blue"