Twitter Blue to Relaunch on Monday. No, Really

After several strategy changes and delays, Twitter announced today that it will finally relaunch its Twitter Blue paid subscription on Monday.

“We’re relaunching Twitter Blue on Monday,” the official Twitter account tweeted today. “Subscribe on the web for $8 per month or on iOS for $11 per month to get access to subscriber-only features, including the blue checkmark. Subscribers will be able to change their handle, display name, or profile photo, but if they do they’ll temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed again.”

“We’ll [also] begin replacing that ‘official’ label with a gold checkmark for businesses,” the account tweeted separately, “and later in the week a gray checkmark for government and multilateral accounts.”

It’s probably not necessary to step through the messy hell that Twitter has become in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover, but there are two important things to note here.

First, the blue checkmark was previously used to identify accounts that were verified by Twitter, but now it is used to identify people who pay for Twitter.

Second, it appears that Mr. Musk was able to convince Apple to let it charge a different price for the service if customers subscribe inside or outside its iPhone app, a tactic that violates Apple’s obtuse and unfair App Store rules. Surely, this will lead to complaints from other developers who would like to do the same thing.

In any event, if you want to pay Twitter for nothing, you can do so starting on Monday.