[pjc50]

This is the wrong way round. Charging people to be popular on twitter would turn it into an advertising platform and drive away the most interesting grassroots users. The benefit flows from the popular 'content creators' to the people who follow but aren't themselves followed.

My own preferred model for charging would be the transferrable 'premium' account: essentially a visible flag on the account that anyone can pay for, like reddit gold. Encourage people to pay for accounts that they enjoy following.

[scholia]

Twitter could actually charge people to have their accounts Verified(assuming they are using their real names).

If that idea is successful, they could let verified users limit their twitstream to show only Verified users.

Then, perhaps, you might stop seeing most of the random crap posted by trolls, who can mob you today, even if they don't follow you and you don't follow them.

[pjc50]

I'd very much like to separate "paid" from "is using real name"; many of the twitter accounts I follow aren't people under their real names.

[scholia]

Yes, fair point. At the moment, "verified" means you are the real Donald Trump, or whoever, not a parody account. What would you be verifying if it wasn't an identifiable name (real name, stage name, etc)?

Under what I was suggesting, you would still be able to follow whoever you liked, whether verified or not. However, you would be able to block all the unverified users....

[dceddia]

I thought they already charged some good amount of money to get that "verified" check, no?

[mckee1]

I know someone with a verified status on Twitter and they did not pay anything.