Musk is planning to charge more money for Twitter Blue subscriptions made using the iPhone.
Elon Musk seems to have found a way to circumvent what he recently called Apple’s “hidden 30 percent App Store tax” as and when the revamped Twitter Blue verification goes live, which should be anytime now, according to some media reports. The trick, it seems, is simple— to charge more money for subscriptions made using the iPhone.
The Information, in its latest report, says Musk’s Twitter 2.0 will charge iPhone users a bit higher if they choose to subscribe to Twitter Blue via the app. The subscription, it is being reported, could cost as high as $11 a month. The service will cost $8 a month if you choose to go via the web, the report adds. Neither Musk or Twitter have made any comments on this yet, so we’ll see.
What we know for sure is that Musk isn’t particularly pumped up about the 30 percent cut that Apple demands from apps for purchases/subscriptions made through the App Store. This has been a big bone of contention for other apps, too, like Spotify which very recently has pulled out from selling audio books through the app on iOS.
The revamped Twitter Blue was supposed to launch earlier but it has been put on hold on several occasions, first to try and figure out a way to avoid account impersonations which became quite rampant the first time the service was launched. Until recently, reports suggested that the re-launch was delayed as Musk was trying to figure out a way to avoid Apple’s 30 percent tax.
Musk has openly called out Apple for this and even fired shots at Apple CEO Tim Cook for allegedly threatening to remove the Twitter app from the App Store. Later, he met with Cook and hinted that it may have been some kind of misunderstanding— Apple never really threatened to pull the Twitter app from the App Store after all.
The pricing for Twitter Blue will be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity,” Musk has previously said, so we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out for the Indian market.
