[PM_me_your_math]

Ah yes, It has a blue checkmark. We can safely disregard good ideas, strong philosophy, and objective reasoning. Humanity is screwed if your delineation is whether or not someone wanted to make their profile look stronger. Now if they don't have a blue checkmark, we can safely assume whatever is said by that profile is gospel so long as it aligns itself with my ideological positions. It is wonderful. We don't even need to think for ourselves anymore when we have thought-leaders thinking for us.

[rsynnott]

The iron law of social media is that those paying for attention (soon, Twitter will prioritise the tweets of those who pay the $8, they claim) are less worthy of attention that those who get it organically. Like, there'll probably be exceptions at the edges, but it's likely a decent filtering heuristic.

Even dating/hookup sites, who pioneered this mechanic, have backed away from it somewhat; Grindr allows people to pay for temporary boosts up the top of the grid, for instance, but it _rations_ this; there's a cooldown once a user does it.

[onion2k]

Humanity is screwed if your delineation is whether or not someone wanted to make their profile look stronger.

That's why it's an anti-recommendation signal. If a user needs to spend $8 or $11 a month to look like they have a strong profile then they're confirming that they don't have a strong profile. If they did they wouldn't need to boost it.

Now if they don't have a blue checkmark, we can safely assume whatever is said by that profile is gospel!

Nope. If a user doesn't have a checkmark then there is no signal, not the opposite signal. You can't assume they're a strong poster or a weak poster; you have to actually read their posts and figure it out from their content.

[PM_me_your_math]

Shouldn't the content quality be the delineating factor?

Who gives a shit if they want to add some authenticity? It showing they are putting some money into their presence. That means the opposite of what op is trying to get across in 250 words or less.

Our civilization has gotten too far from reason. Too many people disregard viewpoints simply because of who makes them, which "side" they are on, and other frivolous things.

[onion2k]

Shouldn't the content quality be the delineating factor?

No, because that's not what Twitter Blue subscribers want. They want to artificially boost their posts regardless of the quality. If they need to do that it's almost certainly a bad sign. If you want content to be the delineating factor then you need to let the content speak for itself.

I view Twitter Blue in a very similar way to paying for ads in Google. Yeah, they move you to the top of the SERPS page, but I'm not going to rely on that to decide what the best link for me to click on is.

[PM_me_your_math]

*I view Twitter Blue in a very similar way to paying for ads in Google

As is your choice and right as a consumer of content.

Ads do have a role, however. The right product can solve a lot of problems, and you may not discover that product were it not for the ad.

Don't get me wrong, Google is beset with ads and they often get in the way of finding what it is you are seeking. But not always.

I don't personally see any issue with people wanting to boost visibility, especially on a platform with almost half a billion users. That's a lot of noise to get through and even if your content is good, you're still competing with no guarantee of a pay off.

[Dudelander]

Nobody has time to read everything. Blocking Twitter blue subscribers is a quick way to weed out bad content. It basically allows me to use the algorithm organically, while weeding out content that is artificially boosted.