Well. That is the question, is it not?
Let’s start by clearing the underbrush. There are dozens of subordinate questions, such as the ethics of the thing and whether people should be expected to pay when the site’s making money from their presence anyway, all that. So let’s get that out of the way first and move on.
First and foremost, there’s the person of Elon Musk and his recent purchase of Twitter and attempted conversion to X (The Artist Formerly Known As Twitter). Some people like him; others don’t. Both have reasons. And I don’t care.
Is he using his money to do evil things? Not particularly. He made some changes at Twitter that I don’t like, but then that’s his choice. I could opt to stop using it, but I won’t. He’s not solving unemployment or saving the Earth; he’s a businessman who’s out to colonize Mars and make a buck doing it. My main gripe is that he’s a billionaire who didn’t bother to become Batman.
There are those who take the question seriously, who object to billionaires simply because they’re billionaires, and who refuse to support them. As an ideal it’s commendable, but it’s also immaterial. If they believe this and still use any online platform whatsoever, they’re violating the tenets of their beliefs by so doing. Do they shop at Amazon? Have they ever interacted with a Blue Check user on Twitter? Do they have a GMail? Do they use Etsy or eBay? Do they grow their own food and live in a tax-free commune? Because otherwise they’re supporting billionaires.
So much for Musk. Moving on.
Secondly, there’s the ethics of paying a fee for an online service. Well, let’s see… I despise Amazon, buy all the books I can at Bookshop.org (because they support local bookstores), and yet on occasion still order from them. They’re convenient, yes, but more importantly their customer service is exceptional. So, yeah, my morality is a bit flexible when it comes to Big Business.
On the other hand, whose isn’t? How many people buy cell phones from China, thereby supporting a tyrannically oppressive regime that stopped any but the most basic pretense of being communist forty years ago? Where does our gasoline come from? How about the fact that we’re sucking down megawatts of power just going online to use the internet in the first place, thereby helping destroy the planet?
I know people who boycott Chick-fil-A for reasons they consider sufficient, and that’s fine – but I happen to like their product, their service, the prices, and their employee policies. Since they no longer participate in the ultra-fringe religious politics of founder Dan Cathy, I see no reason to feel even the slightest twinge of guilt at eating there. I feel far worse patronizing Whole Foods, and for a whole shopping list of offenses against a clean conscience.
I’m planning to cut my subscriptions to streaming services almost across the board in support of the SAG AFTRA strike. (Don’t worry: I own tons of DVD box sets and even an old VCR if I get bored enough. Not to mention tens of thousands of used books. I will survive.) But before today, I did business with Disney + so I could watch The Mandalorian and Paramount + so I could catch Lower Decks, even though I’m convinced Disney is one of the biggest evil corporate conglomerates that ever stiffed a writer and stole intellectual property wholesale.
So, on the whole, no. Buying the Blue Check wouldn’t be unethical for me.
IS IT WORTH THE MONEY?
That’s the operative question: Will my investment of $8 a month ($7 if I pay annually) ever pay off?
Not immediately and directly; that’s certain. You need 15 million impressions per month to get ad-share money; I get about 12,000.
Pre-Musk Twitter, I only ever managed to get 200-odd followers, almost none of whom ever clicked my links or read my stuff. Even family members, from whom I once thought some sort of moral support was kind of obligatory, never really bothered. Distant friends are supportive on Facebook; artist friends, though most mean well, tend to focus on self-promotion, and re-Tweeting (re-X-ing?) me could interfere.
I get it; I’m a harsh diet for a lot of people. I don’t do soft takes. I figure, if it’s not controversial, why bother to write about it? If my opinion is the popular one, enough other people already express it, so why would I trouble myself?
Which is great for me, but not so much for getting a following.
At the moment, I generate a few thousand interactions a day, which is about 2% of the way to the threshold of gaining ad-share revenue. Very few people click on my links and not even my writer and artist friends reTweet them. Part of this is the algorithm; I understand that it’s necessary for a non-Check like myself to have people actively seek him out in order to generate traffic. That doesn’t happen all that much, so… yeah. Not an immediate money-maker.
(CLARIFICATION: I know people who do qualify, and they’d likely generate a few hundred bucks per year with their 20k+ following and daily Tweets.)
On the other hand, I do generate a lot of content. Once a week or so, I post a free link to one of the stories I’ve published – and I’m a damned good writer, even if I do say so myself. I suppose I could do more to self-publicize, such as reading some of my stories aloud, and eventually I guess I’ll have no choice if I’m to succeed as an author. Will buying a Blue Check guarantee me an increase in Follower count and interaction? Very probably, yes. Would it someday be enough to pay for itself? Sure, over time, if I live long enough.
The only question left, I guess, is if I can scrape up the $84.
But that’s not my final decision.
You see, I don’t just write these things to shout into the void, and I don’t do it solely to generate traffic (or even the occasional donation, although those are nice). My goal is, to promote thought in others, and if possible generate discussion. That latter is important, because, unless I actually do know everything (and I don’t), discussion is the best way to learn.
Bringing the general to the specific, what that means is: I want to hear your thoughts on this. You’re my loyal readers, and surely you have some. Maybe there are questions we can answer, objections to explore, potential benefits I haven’t considered.
So: Talk to me, people. Social media, comment here, what have you. I’ll be waiting.
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