Elon Musk hasn’t been on the job a week yet, and he’s about to turn the entire Twitterverse upside down. The billionaire recently completed his deal to purchase the social media giant and take it private, and now he’s looking to make big changes in order to generate more revenue.

His first major decree as emperor? That all the verified blue checkmarks will have to pay tribute or lose their status symbol.

An important detail here: If you already have a blue checkmark, Twitter is currently planning to remove it from your profile after 90 days if you don’t subscribe to the more expensive Blue subscription after it launches.

— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) October 31, 2022

As an unverified peon, I completely support this move. Twitter’s verification system is a joke because it is completely arbitrary, and oftentimes, is also politically influenced. You’ll see absolute nobodies with blue checks with leftwing politics while massive, influential accounts remain unverified for no logical reason whatsoever.

That’s not to say conservatives can’t get verified. Several of our writers here have the honor, but many of them had to fight for it for years while they were given out like candy to liberals.

Here’s the real problem, though. Because verification assigns status on the site, it has been used as a way to push partisan narratives while suppressing legitimate counter-opinions. When only a minority of conservative media figures are verified but every random liberal “journalist” is, that affects things. Besides, how does it make sense to have a verification system where a faceless “safety team” gets to decide who is important and who isn’t? Shouldn’t that be up to follower counts and those who actually use the site?

Moving past that and into the details of Musk’s demand, he apparently wants this new system to go live on November 7th. That’s just a week away as of this writing. Further, he told the engineers involved that they can either get it done or be fired. Naturally, that has led to criticism from people that obviously know how to run a company better than the richest man on earth.

Anyway, the reality is that nothing is going to change except that those who see the blue checkmark as vital to their influence will now pay for it. The rest of us won’t, including a lot of people who currently have them but just don’t care that much.

Further, while the wailing has already begun, it’s important to note that what Musk is doing is necessary. Twitter is notoriously overleveraged. I’m not even sure it has ever turned a real profit despite its value. That’s one of the main reasons Twitter’s old board of directors voted to sell. They saw the writing on the wall. Monetizing the platform while growing it ensures that it will exist far into the future.

Still, it’s funny to think of all the liberals who use their blue checkmark to generate interactions and trash Elon Musk constantly now having to kiss the ring in order to keep their perch. In the end, I think this is a good thing that will take favoritism out of the process.