Mr. Musk had largely come to peace with a price of $100 a year for Blue. But during one meeting to discuss pricing, his top assistant, Jehn Balajadia, felt compelled to speak up. “There’s a lot of people who can’t even buy gas right now,” she said, according to two people in attendance. It was hard to see how any of those people would pony up $100 on the spot for a social media status symbol. Mr. Musk paused to think. “You know, like, what do people pay for Starbucks?” he asked. “Like $8?” Before anyone could raise objections, he whipped out his phone to set his word in stone. “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit,” he tweeted on Nov. 1. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”

Twitter is not a public square controlled by a socialist government – it is a private company in a capitalist economy for the purpose of making money through advertising. Twitter has ZERO interest in promoting the public good.

Congressmembers would have better expertise on tech matters if the Office of Technology Assessment still existed. It was defunded in 1995 under Newt Gingrich’s “Contract to America” plan, because it was an unbiased organization that wouldn’t cow to political narratives. The Chew hearing is one of many instances that highlight both why Newt wanted to defund it, and why eliminating the agency was a detriment to politicians. (Ironically, Newt suggested shortly after the midterms that Republicans should come around to using TikTok to court young voters, despite the allegations of the app’s security risk.) Hopefully, someone in Congress will introduce legislation aimed at reviving the OTA somewhere down the line.