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Substack feels like Medium except instead of blogspam from overexcited junior React developers, you get blogspam from wannabe pseudo-philosophers. As other hav

Substack feels like Medium except instead of blogspam from overexcited junior React developers, you get blogspam from wannabe pseudo-philosophers. As other have mentioned the lack of Paywall is nice tho. Medium had one of the most frustrating iirc.

version_five 5y ago
This is funny and somewhat accurate, certainly for 95% of what's on the sites. For me anyway, medium articles only usually come up when I'm trying to learn about, say, some aspect of data science (and usually read like something someone wrote it so they could put it on their resume). Substack seems to be much more about the authors, and there are a few popular ones that have gone "independent" and write there and have good followings. That, I think, is where substack can be good, if you like editorials from particular people, it's easy to follow them, and they have enough of such people. I wish there was some way to aggregate subscriptions to get a discount though, I feel like I would end up paying them more if I could get an "unlimited" version, though maybe the quality would go down because top folks would get paid less.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  Yeah, despite the semi-joking nature of my post I have found good things in both Medium and Substack. This may be really bad over analysis combined with misremembering, but both sites felt like they reflected the HN users-base (or vice versa). I remember circa 2015-2016 Medium posts and HN comments felt in sync in regards to the tone, content etc. I feel the same thing with many Substack blogs seem feeling like an HN comment section turned into an article.
joshstrange 5y ago
I will never give Medium a single dollar and big part of that is their lying paywall. It always says "Login to view the rest of the article" or something like that. After you login you have a 50-50 chance that it will say something like "you've reached the end of your free article limit" or some variation on that. Sometimes visiting the same link again will show you the content. It makes zero sense and pisses me off every time I run into it.
- tlarkworthy 5y ago
  I, on the other hand, am happy to see a non advertising based business model and thus pay for medium and find it very good value for money compared to a newspaper.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Do you have specific writers or publications on Medium you frequently read? I’d also like to support a publishing platform that doesn’t rely on advertising but it’s never even occurred to me to pay for Medium because it seems like there would just be so much crap to sift through in order to find the good stuff.
    - tlarkworthy 5y ago
      Quite a lot of medium links are on hackernews or on Google searches. I organically encounter it enough I don't need to follow anyone but I do because I also write on it. You could follow me! https://link.medium.com/w4fPh9dzmpb https://link.medium.com/w4fPh9dzmpb But really i don't think I actually consume content by following people . I consume content via social media or aggregators like HN and enough of that contains medium that makes it worth it.
zthrowaway 5y ago
I wonder if at some point they'll have to go into "growth mode" and look to increase revenue, and there comes in ads and paywalls. I think they are great right now because they are young and aren't beholden to such things. Time will tell.
- rchaud 5y ago
  > I think they are great right now because they are young and aren't beholden to such things. AKA the 'burning investor capital' stage. I remember when Uber could ignore the laws of economics and freely undercut taxicab prices. Now they cost the same, if not more.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Medium used to be popular for tech writers because it had nice, minimalist visuals, a ready made audience, and the domain gave posts a lot of credibility. But nothing is free, so they (from my perspective) pivoted to a paywalled publisher. I don't know if they pay fair rates to the authors from those that do pay for a subscription.
cinntaile 5y ago
Medium used to be good, but nowadays it's mostly filled with low quality content so I tend to avoid Medium links. I would assume Quora evolved in pretty much the same way. Substack has a more journalistic feel to it. It also seems to have a broader audience than Medium, which I mostly associate with tech content.

version_five 5y ago

This is funny and somewhat accurate, certainly for 95% of what's on the sites. For me anyway, medium articles only usually come up when I'm trying to learn about, say, some aspect of data science (and usually read like something someone wrote it so they could put it on their resume). Substack seems to be much more about the authors, and there are a few popular ones that have gone "independent" and write there and have good followings. That, I think, is where substack can be good, if you like editorials from particular people, it's easy to follow them, and they have enough of such people. I wish there was some way to aggregate subscriptions to get a discount though, I feel like I would end up paying them more if I could get an "unlimited" version, though maybe the quality would go down because top folks would get paid less.

the_only_law 5y ago
Yeah, despite the semi-joking nature of my post I have found good things in both Medium and Substack. This may be really bad over analysis combined with misremembering, but both sites felt like they reflected the HN users-base (or vice versa). I remember circa 2015-2016 Medium posts and HN comments felt in sync in regards to the tone, content etc. I feel the same thing with many Substack blogs seem feeling like an HN comment section turned into an article.

joshstrange 5y ago

I will never give Medium a single dollar and big part of that is their lying paywall. It always says "Login to view the rest of the article" or something like that. After you login you have a 50-50 chance that it will say something like "you've reached the end of your free article limit" or some variation on that. Sometimes visiting the same link again will show you the content. It makes zero sense and pisses me off every time I run into it.

tlarkworthy 5y ago
I, on the other hand, am happy to see a non advertising based business model and thus pay for medium and find it very good value for money compared to a newspaper.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Do you have specific writers or publications on Medium you frequently read? I’d also like to support a publishing platform that doesn’t rely on advertising but it’s never even occurred to me to pay for Medium because it seems like there would just be so much crap to sift through in order to find the good stuff.
  - tlarkworthy 5y ago
    Quite a lot of medium links are on hackernews or on Google searches. I organically encounter it enough I don't need to follow anyone but I do because I also write on it. You could follow me! https://link.medium.com/w4fPh9dzmpb https://link.medium.com/w4fPh9dzmpb But really i don't think I actually consume content by following people . I consume content via social media or aggregators like HN and enough of that contains medium that makes it worth it.

zthrowaway 5y ago

I wonder if at some point they'll have to go into "growth mode" and look to increase revenue, and there comes in ads and paywalls. I think they are great right now because they are young and aren't beholden to such things. Time will tell.

rchaud 5y ago
> I think they are great right now because they are young and aren't beholden to such things. AKA the 'burning investor capital' stage. I remember when Uber could ignore the laws of economics and freely undercut taxicab prices. Now they cost the same, if not more.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

Medium used to be popular for tech writers because it had nice, minimalist visuals, a ready made audience, and the domain gave posts a lot of credibility. But nothing is free, so they (from my perspective) pivoted to a paywalled publisher. I don't know if they pay fair rates to the authors from those that do pay for a subscription.

cinntaile 5y ago

Medium used to be good, but nowadays it's mostly filled with low quality content so I tend to avoid Medium links. I would assume Quora evolved in pretty much the same way. Substack has a more journalistic feel to it. It also seems to have a broader audience than Medium, which I mostly associate with tech content.