My understanding is Elon never cared about the institution of a blue check mark and is taking them for a nice infusion of cash with the intention of phasing it out.
I think Musk never quite understood how other people perceive a blue tick. In his own experience on Twitter, he probably noticed that verified users were made more visible in his replies, feed, etc., and he seems to think that that is the primary benefit.
But at $8/mo? Celebrities and influencers can afford way more than that.
$8/mo is the price range that attracts scammers and hustlers that care about showing up in the first 5 replies of a major tweet so they can spam their product to a large audience.
I think he's underestimating the damage he's doing to the site. Every respectable person is looking for the exit, it's just that the Twitter moat is very high. But it's not limitless. If any twitter alternative like Mastodon or Notes or BlueSky or whatever gets real traction, Twitter is going the way of Digg.
This is enshittification - pillage the brand for short-term gain, long-term loss, thinking that something is worth more dead than alive. Either Musk is trying to pillage the bluecheck system (he thinks its' worthless and wants to extract some value before he kills it), or Twitter itself (get some short-term revenue from blue-check-chuds so he can make the site look slightly more profitable so he can sell it off).
