In a matter of hours, the Blue Check that's served as verification that I am who I claim to be on Twitter will be gone. Not because I broke a Twitter rule or because I've spent 16 years impersonating Lance Ulanoff on Twitter. No, it's about money, or rather Elon Musk's desperate need for it if he hopes to save the Twitter he's all but destroyed.
When news broke about his plans late last year, I was more bemused than upset. The notion of people paying for verification and, at the time, not actually proving their identities seemed so laughable that I assumed it would never survive. I was partially right. Musk launched Twitter Blue and because no one had to prove anything, it was an unmitigated disaster. Twitter pulled it.
