Can a Place Have A Soul? The Real Difference Between Medium and Substack
Happy Friday,
It’s not often that a comment sticks with me for days, following me around and poking its head up when I least expect it. Common for a lot of writers, I know, particularly negative comments. But it’s not common for me.
I got one such comment last week, and thank you Geoffrey. Stuck with me for days, making me ponder the difference between the places for writers.
The comment ended by saying my Substack post last week read like a post on and for Medium, which made me (actually) laugh out loud, as opposed to that lol thing we do to let someone know they made a funny.
Medium has a glut of meta posts that I try real hard not to contribute to. If I’m going to write about Medium, it’s probably going to be on Substack. And vice verse. Next week I’m posting on Medium about something I learned on Substack.
Anyway, that’s not the good part.
Not the part that popped up for days, making me ponder the difference between two writing platforms. The good part was higher up, where he ponders if a place can have a soul.
Can a place have a soul? That’s a good question.
I mean, everyone knows reddit is full of crap, hate and misogyny, right?
Even people who hang there call it a cesspool. Original home of the incels until reddit kicked them off. It’s a standing joke. How bad do you have to be to get kicked off reddit? Christ. If Reddit had a soul, it would be black as coal, right?
Except, there are fascinating corners of reddit like Ask a Historian, where every answer is vetted by real historians and no one gets to pass off opinion as fact, unlike most of the internet. And r/funny is almost always good for a laugh when I need one.
You know the real difference between Medium and Substack?
It’s not the quality of the content, or the intent of leadership. It’s not the fake algorithm people complain about when staff mark a post “popular” despite that it’s had less than 100 views and they’re trying to make it popular.
It’s not even that Ev wasn’t at Substack pissing around experimenting with the hope and dreams of both new and seasoned writers like he did at Medium. It’s this…
At Medium, all you need is a read to make money.
At Substack, you don’t make money unless someone agrees to pay you directly.
Medium is an all you can eat buffet. Readers pay 5 bucks a month to read as much as they want and writers earn some constantly dwindling bit of the cash pile that’s left over after staff and affiliates and supported publications get paid.
Medium is readers making a commitment to pay the platform.
Substack is a reader making a commitment to pay the writer, not the platform.
That’s the real difference.
It’s worth thinking about.
In a bizarre slice of synchronicity, while I was pondering the soul of a place and the different between Medium and Substack, a Substack reader left a recommendation. It said go to Medium and look up my history posts. lol
(Linda George, I can hear you laughing.)
One more difference…
In the time it took me to gain roughly 1000 readers on Substack, I gained 6000 new readers on Medium. It’s an easier ask. $5 for an all you can eat buffet, vs. a financial commitment to one writer.
Not sure what I’m doing with any of that yet, but if you’re on both platforms, I’d love your take on how they compare. :)
What I wrote this week…
Why People Say Bukowski Was A Disgusting Abusive Lowlife Jerk
The #1 Way To Write Better Is So Stupidly Easy Most People Won’t Bother
P.S. If you’re reading in email, click the title to get to the online version where you can leave a comment. If you enjoyed this, click the heart to let me know.
xo,
Linda
Medium has two roles, for me. One is to earn some money, because let's face it, it's pretty easy to build an audience, if you just keep consistently publishing. The other role is to feed my Substack newsletter with new subscriptions, almost all of which have come from the footer I put on all my Medium articles. I don't charge for my Substack, it's a freebie.
The key difference between the two is that Medium owns my audience and they can take it away at any time. Sure I have some people who have signed up to get my Medium articles, but it's just a handful.
But on Substack, I get the email address of everyone who reads my newsletter and I can do what I like with them. Even if Substack shuts down tomorrow, I have my list. If I create a product, there's a ready-made audience who already knows me.
So, in my opinion, the difference is about owning my audience.
For me, the thing is this. There are a million things about Medium that I hate but also, love. As you said, I pay five bucks and can read and search for whatever I want.
With Substack, I'm HIGHLY unlikely to pay any one writer $5/month unless they are step-by-step walking me through something I need to know more than I need to breathe air lol. I dunno, it's probably selfish to say that but it's true.
I'd WAY rather every writer use a tip app so I can tip them if they write ONE thing I love.