Well it doesn’t mean what it used to anymore. Now you just pay for a subscription and you get it. Hell, I don’t know why you ever thought the check mark pre-Musk ever meant anything other than somebody’s identity being verified as true judging by what you’re saying… Never meant that their opinions were Twitter approved or whatever.
When I tried that service recently I found that it’s incredibly slow. It’s like all the ISPs in the Philippines intentionally throttle it or something. In contrast to that, using Zerotier to connect instead gives me normal speeds.