> Still, it's obvious a lot of people are unhappy with the changes; but it's hard to judge how many people are quietly happy with them.

I follow a number of accounts on Twitter. If someone tweets, previously it seemed the replies which would float to the top would be the ones which were liked the most - like on HN - or perhaps from users that had the equivalent of good karma. Since the sale of blue checkmarks, now the replies which float to the top are from those shilling out eight dollars a month for the blue checkmark, and those top replies are usually inane.

Previously, well-known people would get a verified checkmark. One example talked about on the net is the singer Dionne Warwick, who lost her checkmark as she does not want to pay the eight dollars a month for it. There are two Twitter accounts calling themselves Clint Eastwood's official account - one has a blue checkmark and less than 3500 followers, one does not and has over 100,000 followers - I have no idea which is the real one, if either is. This also makes the platform less useful to use.