I would gladly pay $8 a month for Twitter

But not under these circumstances

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4-25-23

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Become a paid subscriber to receive each Picayune Plus in your email inbox each Tuesday and join our civil and productive commenting community.

As you may have heard, Twitter under Elon Musk has made the bizarre, troubling and amusing decision to change the meaning of the little blue checkmark badge that accompanies the user’s identification on the social media platform. Until recently it signified that the person using the account was “verified,” meaning Twitter had independently confirmed that they were actually the person they said they were and not an impostor.

But now the blue badge verifies nothing. Anyone can buy a badge for $8 a month, and most of those who had one — including me — lost them last week for failure to pay. Indeed having a blue badge next to your name became a mark of shame in many minds — a symbol that you’re dumb enough to pay the reportedly second richest man in the world for the privilege of providing content to his increasingly sketchy site.

Top celebrities, who were evidently given complimentary blue badges along with the accounts of numerous deceased notables, have complained that they don’t want to be seen as the sort of needy person who pays for the seal of Elon Musk’s approval.

In 2015, the parent company of the former Dominick’s supermarket chain had to pay former Bulls’ superstar Michael Jordan $8.9 million for running a print advertisement that merely congratulated Jordan on being inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame. Imagine what celebrities will get from Musk for his witless attempt to suggest that they actually paid for using his service.

I’m no genius entrepreneur, but if I were Musk I’d have simply started charging everyone a modest monthly fee for access to Twitter. People aren’t used to paying for their social media access, but they do value it:

College students in a (2018) study demanded an average of $2,076 to quit Facebook for a year. As Ars Technica explains, this wasn’t just a survey—researchers actually held little auctions to pay the lowest bidder to quit for a day, three days, a week, and a year. That’s not counting the students who refused to put any price on their Facebook use. (Lifehacker)

“This shows that just because we don’t pay for Facebook, that doesn’t mean we don’t value it,” says Sean Cash, an economist at Tufts University, who was the coauthor of the study. … The aim was to calculate what economists call the “consumer surplus”: the gap between what we would be willing to pay for something and what we actually pay. (MIT Technology Review)

Right now, even with all the trolls and haters flooding back in and content moderation close to non-existent, you’d have to pay me to give up Twitter. It’s a source of information, scuttlebutt, breaking news and humor. It’s the first thing I read every morning and the last thing I check before bed.

I’d require compensation for giving up Facebook, too, though I check it less often now that the platform has de-emphasized news. And that all but proves that it’s worth something to me. My answer is a ringing “no” to the question I’m posing below. What about you?

Notes and comments from readers —lightly edited —- along with my responses

Ted. M. — Every now and then, there is a mini-tempest over whether to keep our lowest denomination coins in circulation. The beef against them is vaporous at best. In case the polls are still open on this, I vote to keep our coinage as is. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And it ain't broke.

‘Tis broke. As noted in my original item, each penny costs 2.1 cents to make; each nickel costs 8.52 cents. This discrepancy costs us close to $150 million a year and for what? Cheap sentiment? Nostalgia? Minting pennies and nickels is a government program that costs a lot and gives nothing of value in return — what we in these parts usually call a boondoggle.

Mary D. — Your headline read “Step off, Ruth Bader Feinstein,” but shouldn’t the expression be “Step down”?

It could be. “Step off” is really just a slangy way of telling someone to leave or back down.

Roger P. — The Tribune ran a short excerpt Sunday from a Los Angeles Times editorial on Sen. Dianne Feinstein that sounded very weak. Was the full editorial that feeble?

Yes. It was as hand-wringing and obsequious as editorials get: “The senator is in the extraordinarily difficult position of having to reckon with how her health might affect her ability to return to Washington. The decision is hers to make, in consultation with her doctors, family and close associates. … We wish Feinstein well in the coming days as she considers perhaps the most difficult decision of her long, storied career.” The clear imperative is for her to resign this minute and not sully her legacy by clinging to power for another year and a half. Editorials need to thunder, not mewl.

Beth B — When Ted Kennedy was dying of cancer, no one urged him to retire. Ditto John McCain, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond. I thought of this right away — and today read an article that Susan Collins said the exact same thing. The writer pointed out that judicial nominations were handled differently back then until former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid changed the process. So now Dems are somewhat hoist on their own petard. I hope Feinstein stays in office until her term is up, not to hurt Dems (though when people of either party start playing nonsense, they're always surprised when it comes back to bite them in the butt) -- but to give Feinstein the courtesy that has been shown to the dudes.

The comparison is not apt (and I don’t think it’s accurate, as there were voices calling for those superannuated senators to retire already). In none of those cases could you argue that anything important was being held up or that the continued presence of those senators was particularly consequential. Their votes weren’t critical and they had staff to handle constituent matters.

The Democrats changed the rules in the Senate for judges because Republicans began persistently violating established norms for judicial approval by filibustering Democratic nominees. And the Democrats were then suitably hoisted when the Republicans employed a similar rule change to ram through three U.S. Supreme Court justices on slim margins. I don’t buy for a moment your claim that sexism is at work here.

Marc M. — Sen. Feinstein needed to make the decision to retire before the last election. She chose to run, and the voters re-elected her. Insisting that she retire now as a political expedient merely results in the undemocratic appointment of an unelected person for the remaining 20 or so months of her term. This is a regular scam of Illinois Democrats. Unless the senator is completely incapacitated, the voters of California should live with the person they elected and have a democratic primary process for her replacement next year.

It’s disgusting when elected officials in Illinois retire in ways that grease the way for their chosen successors but that’s not what’s happening here. California voters ought not have to “live with” someone who is almost certainly permanently incapacitated and so cannot vote their interests in Washington. Were they supposed to know she would come down with shingles when the re-elected her?

Ann F. — I'm a fan of city health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, but I wouldn't want Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson to be making decisions about who to put in his administration based on online petitions.

Of course not. I think politicians are in general too susceptible to petitions and protests that reflect the noisiest and most determined people rather than the consensus view of the public they are elected to serve. My hope in this and other cases is not that he or any pol caves to protests and petitions, but that he presents a coherent and convincing case for the decisions he’s going to make.

I have made similar arguments about “justice for X!” protests that seem to demand a particular verdict prior to a trial, as if to say “we know what justice is without an airing of the facts.”

Here, Johnson should make a case why Arwady should be fired and see how it goes over. Maybe he knows something we don’t!

Ted B. — At the time when there was a “rub” between Dr. Arwady and the teachers union, it wasn't only a debate about the science of disease transmission. The issues were more about clarification on policy, such as sick days, what would constitute going remote again, how to handle immunocompromised teachers / students, covid testing, masking, etc. As I understand it, the school officials were not providing answers, just issuing a "time to go back"directive. Johnson could be explaining that conflict, better, but regardless, the blame should not attach to Arwady. She just happened to be the face of "go back" in the minds of many in union leadership.

David L. — Eric, my admiration for your intellect, use of reason and wry humor are what motivates me to subscribe to the PS despite our considerable differing partisan perspectives (and your infrequent use of coarse language and invective). And, it's also very instructive for me to better understand the thought process from the other side, particularly the comments from the more far leftward of my fellow subscribers.

So I say this coming from a good place and in all sincerity, that I hope you will be able to move on from your Kass Derangement Syndrome. We understand that you have serious disagreement with him on most major political issues, and it seems that you are not personally fond of him. But you are often very quick to viscerally respond to his commentary. Remember, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference, and I believe there would be serenity for you in ignoring him instead of monitoring things he says that upsets you.

Thanks for the kind words. I really do value other perspectives here and over the years I’ve learned a lot thinking about the dissents and critiques posted by those on the other side of issues.

As for Kass, I don’t spend much time at all thinking abouthim, honestly. I thought it was infamous of him to trash his former colleagues and lie about what happened at the paper prior to him taking a generous buyout offer and leaving when I did. I found it deliberately, cynically and ignorantly destructive of an important institution, and I see no reason to feign or adopt indifference to that. I called him out on it in “The truth about John Kass’ dispute with the Tribune and the Tribune Guild” hoping to shame him into putting a stop to the lies and will continue to call him out if and when he reiterates those lies. I will also be glad to note and admit to any factual errors in that lengthy piece, but so far no one has called any to my attention

I feel tremendous serenity!

Kevin W. — The syndicated cartoon in Saturday’s Tribune by Steve Kelley showed a reporter asking President Joe Biden, “Can you tell us why you want four more years?” Biden answers, “So that by the time Merrick Garland is impeached and Hunter gets prosecuted, I’ll still be around to pardon him.” I thought it was so offensive that I canceled my home delivery of the Saturday and Sunday papers as well as my digital subscription. I know I’m supposed to support journalism — like the series on slow trials in Cook County you highlighted— but I can’t in good conscience support a newspaper that also prints just utter crap. I don’t know much about Kelley. Was this a one-off done with no time on the clock or is he a real hack most of the time?

He’s a real hack most of the time, as is Michael Ramirez, the other go-to conservative cartoonist that the Tribune favors. Forget Kelley’s logic — a president can’t pardon someone whom Congress is impeaching and there is zero chance that Garland would be convicted at an impeachment trial based on right-wing indignation that the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. That cartoon was just stupid, lazy and, because it made no point, not at all funny.

I’ll interject here that I have no problem whatsoever with investigating Hunter Biden and prosecuting him if there’s evidence he broke the law. Evildoers should pay the price of crime. Right? It’s a pity that those with Republican leanings don’t feel that way about investigating and prosecuting Donald Trump.

Anyway, in the April 17 Tribune, Ramirez drew some airline employees installing a chair lift on the ramp up to Air Force One and had a Secret Service agent saying “Roger that, it looks like Biden is running again.” which such looked like partisan ageism since Doddering Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee next year, is just two years younger than Biden and in much worse physical shape.

In the April 11 Tribune, a Ramirez cartoon showed a little boy trying to buy a six-pack of beer and telling the cashier, “but I identify as a 21-year-old woman.” This had echoes of Kelley’s mid-March cartoon with a little boy identifying at as T-Rex. The deployment of the shopworn “I identify as …” joke to mock trans people adds stale to the list of applicable pejoratives.

That the paper can’t find more clever right-leaning artists like regular contributor Scott Stantis to provide balance is a shame.

Pete P. — The best of the nominees for Tweet of Week is in last place!

I agree! "And there I was, at 21, broken that I'd never hear my sister laugh again. I held her limp hand, my eyes playing cruel tricks as I swore I saw her breathe. In that moment, all I could think about was the lava cake we'd bake together. For this recipe, you'll need a double boiler… — @elle91" is as deft and funny a satire of introductory recipe essays as you'll ever read.

There is a long discussion about the Adam Toledo case in a comment thread from last week that those still intrigued by that matter will want to read. In another thread, readers and I expanded the conversation to talk about Trayvon Martin and Kyle Rittenhouse.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

I often run across tweets that rely on visual humor and so can’t be included in the Tweet of the Week contest (the template I use for that poll does not allow me to include images). Here are a few good ones I’ve come across recently:

Vote for your favorite. I will disqualify any tweets I later find out used digitally altered photos. I’ll share the winner in Thursday’s main edition.

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll!

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