In less than a week after his appointment to Twitter’s board of directors, billionaire Elon Musk has suggested sweeping changes to the social media platform, and Twitter Blue in particular.
The ardent prolific user of Twitter widely tweeted on Saturday, suggesting a number of changes that may affect the subscribers of Twitter Blue- Twitter’s subscription service.
The suggested changes include cutting of prices, the option to pay in cryptocurrency and banning ads.
Musk was appointed to Twitter’s board of directors on Tuesday last week and he promised to make “significant improvements to Twitter in the coming months.”
Launched in June last year, Twitter Blue is the social media giant’s first subscription service for those willing to pay for exclusive access to special features — such as an “Undo Tweet” feature, customized Twitter app icons and the ability to add bookmarks.
In a series of tweets on Saturday, Musk suggested there should be no ads and that the subscription price be reduced.
“Everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue should get an authentication checkmark,” he tweeted.
“Price should probably be ~$2/month, but paid 12 months up front & account doesn’t get a checkmark for 60 days and is suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam,” he said.
“And no ads. The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive,” he added.
Musk also proposed that the pricing should be in local currency.
Further Musk suggested that Twitter Blue subscription payments be in Doge, the cryptocurrency.
The Twitter Blue service is available in only the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
In June last year, referring to Twitter Blue, Twitter wrote:
“We’ve heard from the people that use Twitter a lot, and we mean a lot, that we don’t always build power features that meet their needs. Well, that’s about to change. We took this feedback to heart, and are developing and iterating upon a solution that will give the people who use Twitter the most what they are looking for: access to exclusive features and perks that will take their experience on Twitter to the next level.”
It said that those who sign up for a Twitter Blue subscription will get a set of features and perks that included: Bookmark folders- a feature that allows one to organize their saved content; Undo Tweet- a feature that allows one to preview a tweet before it goes live; Reader Mode- a feature that allows seamless reading of threads.