> all of the reports are about how stupid the idea is and how such a move would kill Twitter.
Because, _for a service like Twitter_, it _is_ stupid and it _would_ kill Twitter. Paid social networks can and have worked (examples would be SomethingAwful, plus a lot of dating sites, and things like Patreon as marginal cases), but it's not going to work for the social network that _everyone's_ on, and Twitter wouldn't be viable as a social network with like half a million paying users And as we've seen with the blueticks, the tiny minority of users who are willing to pay tend to be completely insufferable. As you'd expect; they're largely doing it for self-promotion purposes.
But in general, "situationally, this is a stupid idea" should not be read as "anything which looks vaguely like this is a stupid idea". There likely is a place for paid social media (and donation-supported social media, and so on); it's just that that place is probably not _Twitter_.
Because, _for a service like Twitter_, it _is_ stupid and it _would_ kill Twitter. Paid social networks can and have worked (examples would be SomethingAwful, plus a lot of dating sites, and things like Patreon as marginal cases), but it's not going to work for the social network that _everyone's_ on, and Twitter wouldn't be viable as a social network with like half a million paying users And as we've seen with the blueticks, the tiny minority of users who are willing to pay tend to be completely insufferable. As you'd expect; they're largely doing it for self-promotion purposes.
But in general, "situationally, this is a stupid idea" should not be read as "anything which looks vaguely like this is a stupid idea". There likely is a place for paid social media (and donation-supported social media, and so on); it's just that that place is probably not _Twitter_.