It certainly was the handling and the strategy how they'd introduce it. First, they obviously should haven't repurposed an existing badge. Im my opinion, setting a lower price in the 1st three months and openly communicating that the price will increase a bit seems like a choice to get quick adoption. 8$/month is too high when people can't experience the value of it yet.

It is both. It was an asinine play obvious to anyone that thought about the trolling for half a second, and the purported benefits were what? Now you too can get a blue checkmark? Sure the verification process was capricious crap, but now he's ransoming back features to people.

Musk is a fool. But Zuck is the fool that follow him.