Here’s a pretty good thread about why Elmo is paywalling 2FA and why it won’t save him any money. Short version; scammers spam false 2FA requests in order to get kickbacks from unscrupulous telcos, Twitter used to have a person who looked for these scammers and shut them down, Elmo fired them because they weren’t doing hardcore coding, and he just now looked at their monthly bill.
AGILE!
Having now read the Twitter thread, it is so Muskian. But perhaps he sees something that we mere mortals do not.
I suspect that removing 2FA will increase the amount of undectable robot traffic, creating lots of junk content - ads, propaganda, etc. - without paying Twitter anything for it.
It will also create a lot more administration overhead because of people reporting hacked accounts, fighting against moderation notices because a bot posted something under their handle, etc.
I would expect that the total cost to Twitter is higher than the cost of global 2FA.
I’ve wondered if musk is perfectly content to let bots and troll farms increase, in order to increase ad impressions.
I think the term for bots posting under your handle is called “identity borrowing”. It’s similar to identity theft, but rather than trying to steal from the account, the hackers are using the compromised accounts to boost their promoted accounts and tweets about their promoted products.
This apparently needs clarifying. Only text-message-based 2FA is being paywalled on Twitter. The announcement includes this:
We encourage non-Twitter Blue subscribers to consider using an authentication app or security key method instead. These methods require you to have physical possession of the authentication method and are a great way to ensure your account is secure.
So they are not paywalling Two-Factor Authentication, only the one (likely most common) method.
It still is probably a dumb thing to do, but please everybody stop responding as though they’ve made it impossible to have 2FA without paying now.
Here, to me, is the real problem. Decided to tag Elmo because, wtf, my time there is limited. It’s not even worth opening any more.
You cannot tell me that the breakup of the gathering place of the American press was not intentional.
I object to the orthographic ambiguity here. The term “pos” may, quite appropriately in this context, be interpreted as meaning “piece of shit”. But in that case it should be capitalized.
It could also acceptably be used as an abbreviation for “pustule”, in reference to pus-filled, blister-like sores (though “pus” is more conventional). While both interpretations are admirably appropriate descriptions of Elmo, the ambiguity as to your actual intended meaning leaves your readers in a state of anxiety.
.
Piece of shit, for the abbreviationally-challenged. 
Thank you for bringing this to my concern. We all strive to make a better Board.
Hey! I would also have accepted Point of Sale.
Since that seems to be what he’s about (for Blue) while not caring about post sale support.
As for Piece of Shit, I don’t buy it. I mean, Musk is too slimy, too likely to spread filth such as Ye and his ilk everywhere. He’s more much more like a slimy, near liquid semi-solid rather than a firm P.o.S.
I would fully accept pus though. Since he’s an infected wound that’s leaking all over everyone else.
Would that render POP?
Well, we’d all like to pop the little fucker, yes…
Furthermore, I’ve been doing some digging with my contacts about potential reasons for this move, and the more we talk about it, the more it would make sense to just get rid of 1FA and SMS 2FA altogether and require all users to use a more secure method of 2FA. There’s no good reason to keep either of those anymore other than a slight level of convenience, and this would be a very Apple/Tesla move anyway. Push the envelope forward and all.
The real question is why Twitter is keeping SMS 2FA for subscribers, not why they’re getting rid of it for everyone else.
Still, it is probably Musk’s fault that the messaging around this change was so bungled.
Musk sees things from a 20,000 foot view and due to this he can see things beyond the scope of us mere mortals. Plus, you know, Agile!
Less Agile, more Fragile.
Edit:
Dammit.
Just got put in Twitter jail for calling ex-Trump spokesperson Jenna Ellis the Whore of MAGAlon, is it really my fault if Elmo doesn’t understand the Bible?
I mean misogyny is gross no matter what side is doing it. But good one I guess.
Yeah, you deserve to be in Twitter jail for that. It’s hard to resist a nice pun, but this is one that you should have resisted.