This week saw the promised relaunch of the Twitter Blue subscription, which provided paying $8 a month users of the social network with account verification and the ability to edit tweets, among other privileges. Subscribers to the service will be able to view half as many ads now, and next year, Twitter promises to offer a subscription option that will eliminate the need for users to view ads altogether.

As expected, the price differentiation of subscribers is based on the operating system used by their mobile devices. Google Android users will pay $8 per month, while Apple iOS customers, if they wish to pay for a subscription directly in the app, will be forced to fork out $11 to cover up to 30% commission costs. iOS users still have the option to save that $3, but they need to pay through a third-party site instead of a mobile app.

Twitter Blue subscribers, in addition to fewer ads and the ability to edit tweets, will be able to post longer videos and will be given early access to new features. Also, the posts of paid subscribers will be shown higher in the search and in the answers. After verification, private users will be given blue checkmarks confirming the authenticity of the account. Twitter warns that a valid user phone number must be linked to the account in order to successfully complete the procedure. Subscribers are allowed to change their account name, profile signature or photo, but doing so will require you to re-verify and it will take some time for the blue check mark to be restored. Violators of the rules of the social network are threatened with blocking without reimbursement of subscription costs. Companies will be given gold checkmarks, public, government and political organizations will be given gray checkmarks.

Elon Musk emphasized that users of the basic version of the Twitter Blue subscription will be able to view half as many ads, and next year a higher level service will be offered that will eliminate the need for subscribers to view ads altogether. How much such a subscription will cost, the head of the company did not specify. Recall that the ultimate goal of Elon Musk's reforms is to turn subscription funds into Twitter's main source of income.

Those users who received blue checks under the old rules will lose them within a few months unless they switch to paying for Twitter Blue on the current terms. According to Elon Musk, the old conditions for issuing these verification marks were “ridiculous and wrong.”