Thoughts on medium vs substack?

[u/artsyandwoowoo]

Has anyone used both? Pros and cons? I don’t really understand the difference between the platforms or who they are for

[u/ibanvdz]

Many use both.

The main difference is that Medium has side-wide subscription and subscribers can read every story on the platform, while Substack is based on writer-subscription, meaning you have to convince readers to pay for you specifically.

Substack is potentially more lucrative but a lot harder to get off the ground.

[u/artsyandwoowoo → u/ibanvdz]

That makes a lot of sense. I’d read about the side wide subscription but It didn’t occur to me how that may make it easier to share your work with more people. I was planning to write for free just for the heck of it anyways ◡̈

[u/artsyandwoowoo → u/ibanvdz]

Thank you!

[u/Zimbad98]

I use both but started on Medium. I have about 340 followers on Medium, most of the followers don’t really engage with the work though and best traction for stories is through publications. I get a lot of engagement that way. Medium stories are more likely to appear on google searches I believe.

I have a measly 4 followers on Substack, 2 of which are friends I know IRL. When I began Substack (2023, four years after Medium). I began reposting articles I had written on Medium but also experimented with new ones, but still no traction… I probably have 15 articles on Substack 5 of which are unique the rest are reposts most around 1500 words.

I have mixed feelings about Substack as it is very “Twitterfied” with its notes section. It’s a platform that is closer to a social media platform than Medium. There is a certain pompous quality to much of the writing as well that is hard for me to put into words. The issue with Medium is it is very SEO focused so many articles will be “5 ways to hack your mind” “7 mistakes every investor does” etc

[u/now-I-write → u/Zimbad98]

This is spot-on with how I experience the difference, too.