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Substack might be the new medium, and I think that's a good thing. Substack has a way for writers to get paid. I do pay for a few writers on substack, I don't e

Substack might be the new medium, and I think that's a good thing. Substack has a way for writers to get paid. I do pay for a few writers on substack, I don't even know if that is a thing at medium. Best thing about Substack over Medium, is that Medium was the most annoying blogging platform, it didn't like that I highlighted as I read. And it was really bad at finding more from an author.

rhaksw 4y ago
Yeah, Substack is something new and seems to be gaining traction. I wonder if its success has contributed at all to Reddit's CEO saying he wants users to earn money, > Spez - I want our users, user-users and moderator users, to make money on reddit. Specifically, I want them to make money from other users. And so we need to have business models where users are paying money to other users or to subreddits. I would like subreddits to have the ability to be businesses. We have a lot of subreddits that are kind of trying to do this, but the platform just doesn't support it. https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xhuaqf/are_we_allowed_to_discuss_what_spez_brought_up_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xhuaqf/are_we_a...
- technion 4y ago
  I read your quote and I thought "nah, it's probably just Spez pushing crypto again". Then I click your link and he goes on to suggest Reddit NFT have been a community success. Then he talks about making people's lives better. The more I read, the more I felt that initial suggestion was correct. I do acknowledge noone else in that thread seemed to jump on that point.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Of all the NFTs in the world the Reddit ones are the most pitiful.
dehrmann 4y ago
I'm not sure how big of an issue writer pay is because there seems to be an infinite supply of people who will write for free trying to make a name for themselves.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  the problem of writer pay is if you don't pay writers the supply of writers who can afford to put in the time to produce quality writing without pay dwindles down to those who have some other source of free money. But not everyone who has access to the free money can produce quality writing, the supply goes even further down.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    But there's a continuous supply of writers with wealthy parents and degrees from mediocre boutique liberal arts schools who are "following their dreams."
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      I didn't say there wasn't, but your comment seems rather disparaging of those writers, almost as if you think a good deal of them might not be worth reading? If so we are back to my argument that there is in fact not an infinite supply of writers worth reading who have the time to produce quality writing without compensation. on edit: fixed you have the time to who have the time, writing on 2-3 hours of sleep does strange things at times.
      - dehrmann 4y ago
        > almost as if you think a good deal of them might not be worth reading It's not that, but I was going for a cold, hard truth tone. Some of them absolutely are worth reading, it's just that supply outstrips demand. It's the same with musicians. There's an endless supply of good enough musicians in their 20's that are marketable. Or aspiring actors in waiting tables in LA.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
It seems to me that once you are an established writer you can go to substack and get something worthwhile out of it, but otherwise - let's read this suggestion on how to grow your audience https://on.substack.com/p/getting-your-first-100-signups https://on.substack.com/p/getting-your-first-100-signups I guess this is useful if there is no difference between your professional and non-professional personas, then you can get a lot of people reading you from linkedIn that are your professional connections and interested in what you write because you write about your professional interests. Or if you are a naturally convivial person who has done nothing but expanded their supply of friends from high school on. Or who has the free time to go to social events and socialize. I'm writing on Medium https://medium.com/luminasticity https://medium.com/luminasticity because it seems to have an understandable way of building an audience that does not require you to do much other than write (although there is a detestable social aspect to it as well), it certainly isn't going great and it has taken 3 months to build 97 followers, most days I get only 4 or 5 views with every now and then a large amount for no discernible reason (by large I tend to mean 70 views), pretty much everything I write gets less than 100 views - whether a short funny piece about how suggestions by computers tend to be useless if you are actually competent [Suggestions from Idiots](https://medium.com/p/6b023acc30ae https://medium.com/p/6b023acc30ae ) to a multi-story time travel narrative https://medium.com/p/adb84f467d8a https://medium.com/p/adb84f467d8a with a recurring character. I have however had one article that got 4.500 views - [To Speak Meaningfully About Art](https://medium.com/p/329093dbce7f https://medium.com/p/329093dbce7f) - why? Not sure, the Medium stats don't really tell you much. As disheartening as it all is, looking at substack and I can't help but think I would probably be much less than that. Maybe I should have put both up and posted to both to see which got more traction instead of relying on my personal sense that Substack is for people who have an audience, and while Medium might be a ghetto you can maybe build something there.

rhaksw 4y ago

Yeah, Substack is something new and seems to be gaining traction. I wonder if its success has contributed at all to Reddit's CEO saying he wants users to earn money, > Spez - I want our users, user-users and moderator users, to make money on reddit. Specifically, I want them to make money from other users. And so we need to have business models where users are paying money to other users or to subreddits. I would like subreddits to have the ability to be businesses. We have a lot of subreddits that are kind of trying to do this, but the platform just doesn't support it. https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xhuaqf/are_we_allowed_to_discuss_what_spez_brought_up_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xhuaqf/are_we_a...

technion 4y ago
I read your quote and I thought "nah, it's probably just Spez pushing crypto again". Then I click your link and he goes on to suggest Reddit NFT have been a community success. Then he talks about making people's lives better. The more I read, the more I felt that initial suggestion was correct. I do acknowledge noone else in that thread seemed to jump on that point.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Of all the NFTs in the world the Reddit ones are the most pitiful.

dehrmann 4y ago

I'm not sure how big of an issue writer pay is because there seems to be an infinite supply of people who will write for free trying to make a name for themselves.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago
the problem of writer pay is if you don't pay writers the supply of writers who can afford to put in the time to produce quality writing without pay dwindles down to those who have some other source of free money. But not everyone who has access to the free money can produce quality writing, the supply goes even further down.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  But there's a continuous supply of writers with wealthy parents and degrees from mediocre boutique liberal arts schools who are "following their dreams."
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    I didn't say there wasn't, but your comment seems rather disparaging of those writers, almost as if you think a good deal of them might not be worth reading? If so we are back to my argument that there is in fact not an infinite supply of writers worth reading who have the time to produce quality writing without compensation. on edit: fixed you have the time to who have the time, writing on 2-3 hours of sleep does strange things at times.
    - dehrmann 4y ago
      > almost as if you think a good deal of them might not be worth reading It's not that, but I was going for a cold, hard truth tone. Some of them absolutely are worth reading, it's just that supply outstrips demand. It's the same with musicians. There's an endless supply of good enough musicians in their 20's that are marketable. Or aspiring actors in waiting tables in LA.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

It seems to me that once you are an established writer you can go to substack and get something worthwhile out of it, but otherwise - let's read this suggestion on how to grow your audience https://on.substack.com/p/getting-your-first-100-signups https://on.substack.com/p/getting-your-first-100-signups I guess this is useful if there is no difference between your professional and non-professional personas, then you can get a lot of people reading you from linkedIn that are your professional connections and interested in what you write because you write about your professional interests. Or if you are a naturally convivial person who has done nothing but expanded their supply of friends from high school on. Or who has the free time to go to social events and socialize. I'm writing on Medium https://medium.com/luminasticity https://medium.com/luminasticity because it seems to have an understandable way of building an audience that does not require you to do much other than write (although there is a detestable social aspect to it as well), it certainly isn't going great and it has taken 3 months to build 97 followers, most days I get only 4 or 5 views with every now and then a large amount for no discernible reason (by large I tend to mean 70 views), pretty much everything I write gets less than 100 views - whether a short funny piece about how suggestions by computers tend to be useless if you are actually competent [Suggestions from Idiots](https://medium.com/p/6b023acc30ae https://medium.com/p/6b023acc30ae ) to a multi-story time travel narrative https://medium.com/p/adb84f467d8a https://medium.com/p/adb84f467d8a with a recurring character. I have however had one article that got 4.500 views - [To Speak Meaningfully About Art](https://medium.com/p/329093dbce7f https://medium.com/p/329093dbce7f) - why? Not sure, the Medium stats don't really tell you much. As disheartening as it all is, looking at substack and I can't help but think I would probably be much less than that. Maybe I should have put both up and posted to both to see which got more traction instead of relying on my personal sense that Substack is for people who have an audience, and while Medium might be a ghetto you can maybe build something there.