Ex-executive: Blue tick fees will cause Twitter to lose its magic.

According to a former executive, charging $8 (£7) a month for a Twitter blue tick and other perks will cause the social media network to lose its "magic"

According to the platform's former global communications director Brandon Borrman, all users now have an equal voice there.

Twitter would "stratify" if verification and visibility were sold.

He was "curious and worried" about what Elon Musk, the platform's new owner, may do to increase sales.

According to Mr. Borrman, "if charging for the blue tick was the fairest way to do it, I think Twitter probably would have done it a while ago."

He also questioned Twitter's ability to defend charging users to maintain a "equal playing field" with other users.

In addition to receiving the blue Verified badge, Mr. Musk has suggested that people who pay might have their tweets promoted more broadly and see fewer advertisements.

Brandon Borrman stated, "It's great for people who have money and want to spend money on having their voice amplified. $8 might seem like nothing to a lot of people - but it's quite substantial for most people around the world."

"We need to pay the bills somehow." Mr. Musk tweeted in reference to his strategy.

Celebrities, politicians, and world leaders express their opinions on Twitter, which is seen as influential, and regular people can reply to them there.

But despite having a core user base of around 300 million people every month, the business has not turned a profit in a number of years.

And Mr. Borrman agreed that for it to advance, it had to alter.

Its main issue, according to him, was that many people who tried it left.

"You have to convince them that they'll get something out of it that they don't already by seeing tweets embedded in newspapers and television coverage all over the world."

Threats to deactivate accounts have been made by some Twitter users in opposition to the new administration.

However, Mr. Borrman asserted that there was still no convincing substitute, despite claims made by smaller rival Mastadon that it had added thousands of new users after Mr. Musk's acquisition.

"They're just not consumer or user friendly," he claimed.

Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, is working on a social network idea called Bluesky, although it is unclear when it will start or what it will look like.

In addition, Mr. Dorsey has kept his about $1 billion stake in Twitter and continues to support Mr. Musk, calling him "the singular solution I trust" to lead the business.

Mr. Borrman, who departed Twitter in June 2021 after three and a half years and is now employed by the non-profit online company Mozilla, expressed his satisfaction at leaving the company before Mr. Musk took over.

He stated he was still in touch with company pals and coworkers and that things were now "tense" at the corporate headquarters.

He stated that "Elon obviously has a particular way he likes to manage and approach things that's quite different from the way Twitter has been managed in the past."

"There's a lot of people who are in 'wait-and-see' mode." 

Unverified rumors claim Mr. Musk is thinking about terminating thousands of employees.

According to Mr. Borrman, the Silicon Valley ethos of luring and maintaining technology talent has led to a number of businesses that are "probably bigger than they need to be right now" One such company is Twitter.

Having that staff on hand can actually be very beneficial to you and accelerate your growth, according to him. "Tech moves in cycles that are radically different than oil and gas, automotive, other forms of manufacturing, so having that staff on hand can actually be very beneficial to you and accelerating your growth," he said.

"Twitter was in a pretty good position going into 2022."

"I was really excited to see what that team was going to do going forward."

"It's disappointing that they weren't able to actually execute on what I think for was a pretty solid strategy."

By fLEXI tEAM