Elon Musk might be laughing out loud after many of his critics strongly opposed his move to have twitter users pay for checkmarks, news reaching us shows that Facebook and Instagram are likely planning to introduce the same very soon. It looks like Elon Musk’s tough leadership style at Twitter is having some broader impacts with more companies calling for layoffs in the wake of Elon Musk asking 70% of the staff at Twitter to step aside and keeping the app running.
The interesting update is that Meta (formerly Facebook) is now considering charging users of Facebook and Instagram for blue checkmarks. It is not yet clear if Elon Musk’s new approach has yielded tangible results yet but for Facebook to come out and consider taking on the same approach clearly tells something. According to the findings of reverse engineering pro Alessandro Paluzzi, there is a new mention in the codebase of both Facebook and Instagram of “paid blue badge”.
Paluzzi also went ahead to share a screen shot of the code with TechCrunch
The codes above seem to refer to a subscription service on both platforms which will give you a blue checkmark as a result. The leadership at Meta have neither come out to deny nor accept this move but all we know is that it is among the things these giant tech companies are keenly interested in and very soon we may see it come to life. I know many of you reading this will say that the blue badge is going to lose meaning but hey, hold your emotions right there. Did you know that Twitter is already bagging USD7M every quarter from Blue Checkmarks subscriptions?
Meta has in the past made a promise to their users that they will never charge subscription fees to access their apps but this seems to be changing with the tough economic times facing the tech giants. May be this is a way of supplementing their income since their recent Meta projects seem to be seriously money based to execute. We will be looking out for any updates that will come in from Meta as regards this information but for now all we can say is that Elon Musk’s influence is unstoppable.