King (aptly named) would be happier if it was a Veblen good that cost $100,000/mo, which he could afford, but the peasants can't.
Elon is mocking King and his status symbol by saying "fine, how about $8?", which from the King's perspective, is worse than $20 because even more peasants will have it. The Blue Check is easier to get than a Netflix subscription.
I think he was insulted at the idea of having to pay anything to be verified on the platform, when both his presence and his being verified are helpful to twitter and make twitter money, even if they do also drive some book sales for him. I took it as his saying that he'd respond to such an insult (being asked to pay) by simply leaving, because Twitter and whatever little extra money it's making him don't really matter much to him.
I doubt he's alone in that thinking. Though sure, some celebs, most or all brands (that's who they should be soaking with monthly charges), and the media will stick around until/unless the platform enters clear decline and a viable alternative emerges.
I think you’re not familiar with a King as a person or an author based on your comment.
Finally, you thinking Musk was mocking is also wrong. He was using Kings viral tweet as a jump off point for the tweet this HN post is based off of.
What an absolute clownish take.
Also, HN has a rule against asking people whether they've read the article. Asking people whether they know who some famous person is, is obnoxious in the same way.
"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators"
So it is essentially, charge the people who bring the users to twitter.
It's not original, it's not adding to the discussion, and it just sounds like sycophancy.
The entire point of these things were so that it was an indication that these people are who they say they are: experts and celebrities.
This absolute loon wants to charge the people who are the only reason that twitter even still exists.
