Underrated in X's changes is how blue checkmark users are shown first underneath popular tweets. Most people who pay for blue checkmarks are either sympathetic to Musk's ideology or indifferent. Many blue checkmark users are there to make money from engagement.

The result is underneath any tweet that gets traction you will see countless blue checkmark users either saying something trolling for their side or engagement-baiting.

The people who are more ideologically neutral or not aligned with Musk are completely drowned out below the hundreds of bulk replies of blue checkmarks.

It used to be that if you saw someone, like a tech CEO, take an interesting position you'd have a varied and interesting discussion in the replies. The algorithm would show you replies in particular from people you follow, and often you'd see some productive exchange that actually mattered. Now it's like entirely drivel and you have to scroll through rage bait and engagement slop before getting to the crumbs of meaningful exchange.

It has had a chilling effect on productive intellectual conversation while also accelerating the polarization of the platform by scaring away many people who care about measured conversation.

I automatically tune out any blue checkmark post or reply and just assume it's an LLM responding to earn $.003