[imagesource:insider]

Elon Musk has a few billionaire rivals.

Where once he went head-to-head with Jeff Bezos in the space race, he’s now entered a new arena with Mark Zuckerberg since his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, competing for advertiser dollars and the attention of consumers.

Call it (them) the attention wars (wh*res).

Twitter is already up against Instagram and Facebook, which attract more advertisers than the microblogging website, and now the Zuck is planning on a more obvious face-off.

While Musk’s Twitter 2.0 started gathering more revenue through the platform’s subscription service Blue by incorporating the blue badge for verifying the identity of the account, Zuckerberg just copied this initiative by launching Meta Verified.

The Street reported that Meta Verified will offer users the chance to have their Facebook and Instagram accounts verified, to ensure that an impostor or troll does not impersonate them.

While Blue’s monthly price was raised to $7,99 and $11 for iPhone owners, Meta Verified will cost $11,99 a month for users subscribing on the web, and $14,99 a month for those using Apple’s iOS operating system.

Since more people are on Facebook and Instagram over Twitter, Zuckerberg is set to pull in way more money than Musk.

As if that’s not enough of a battle, Zuckerberg is apparently building a decentralised, text-based social network to directly compete with Twitter:

Meta did not respond to a request for comment. But the company told other news outlets that: “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates.”

“We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”

The project – in its preliminary stages and with a still unknown launch date – is codenamed P92 and is being piloted by Adam Mosseri, who runs Instagram.

Zuckerberg essentially plans to steal all the people who are unhappy with Musk’s Twitter trajectory – making it a safe place for conservatives to spread whatever nonsense they deem worthy after being muzzled under Twitter 1.0.

Decentralised social networks are popular in the cryptocurrency community. Even Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, backs the idea:

Fans of decentralized networks say that the platforms can be funded with specific non-fungible tokens and that users are in control of their data unlike centralized networks where companies collect data and then target users with ads.

With a decentralized app, individual users can set up their own, independent servers and set rules for how content is moderated. It helps to avoid centralized control of content. Groups and communities can set their own rules without risk of censorship.

Choose your platform, choose your fighter, I guess.

[source:street]