Elon Musk has previously criticised Apple for having excessive control over mobile apps on the App Store. The required 30% app charge that developers must pay in order to sell their products on Apple’s App Store is another complaint the multibillionaire has with the policy. If you subscribe to Twitter Blue using an iPhone, the fee will be higher just for this problem.
If you choose to purchase Twitter Blue through the Twitter app for the iPhone instead of the website, the monthly fee will increase to $11 from $7. The Information reported that this was done to make up for the app tax that Apple charges every developer who wants to sell something on the App Store. If this is the case, Twitter won’t be the only service attempting to avoid the 30% app tax.
Amazon and Apple reached an agreement to reduce the commission from 30% to 15%, despite Apple’s claims that it treats all developers equally. This was one approach to get around the costs, but another is to have end customers pay for it rather than the app developers. This is what Twitter appears to have opted to do by raising the price of the Blue subscription for iPhone users.
When anyone could purchase a premium subscription to get verified on Twitter, Elon Musk came under fire. While eliminating spam and bots was the intended goal, the entire strategy failed and led to an increase in impersonation on the network. Twitter announced that “newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days” in order to address this issue.
On Friday, Twitter intends to relaunch the Blue Verified membership. We shall discover more about the differences this time around.
Will you purchase a Blue subscription to confirm your identity on the site, or do you prefer to do it manually? Post a comment and let us know.
