Paywall Pain On Substack

Paywall pain is different to readers and writers on Substack. That's because Substack isn't Medium and Medium isn't Substack.

I ran across a conversation on Notes yesterday. Someone was mad because she was reading a really good post and then — whack — right in the middle. A paywall link. Want to keep reading? Subscribe. She was some mad.

Whole bunch of people dived in to commiserate. How frustrating that is.

One person said “omg, you do that, I guarantee I will never pay you.”

I was kind of stunned at how angry some readers were. That writers want to get paid. But I wasn’t the only one. Someone else posted to say okay, but how do you want writers to make a living, then?

Then another person said she can’t afford to support all the writers she wants to support. Five bucks here, five bucks there, adds up too fast. She can’t, financially.

Someone else said she supports writers by reading. Because she can’t pay everyone she reads, but she can at least give them a read. I’m reading that, thinking, y’all, it’s not Medium. On Substack we don’t support each other with reads. That’s how it works on Medium, not Substack.

But we do that. As humans. New thing comes along, we use it like the last vaguely similar thing. When television came out, they put up a photo of some product and read out radio ads. Took a while to dawn on us we could do ads different on tv.

That’s why people do “follow for follow” on Medium. Cause it worked on Facebook. That’s why we follow 458 people on Substack. Cause it works on Medium.

Someone said they wish Substack would let readers pay by the article. Darn near choked on my coffee. It’s hard enough making a living $5 at a time. Could you imagine writing every day, praying to make fifty cents or a dollar from enough readers to keep the lights on, food on the table, rent paid? Good luck with that.

Here’s the thing. Substack started out as a better Mailchimp. Because yeah, you can go build a mailing list and newsletter at Convert Kit or Mailchimp or Constant Contact or wherever. But then the hard part is on you. Go ahead, go find subscribers.

So Substack said hey, we know what people subscribe to. We can put you in front of other people who read similar content. And all they wanted in return was 10%. Plus, Stripe takes 3%. The writer gets 86%. What a win, yeah?

In 2023, Substack generated $29M in revenue. A big jump from the $19M in 2022.

Three years ago, Forbes published an article saying the top 10 writers on Substack were earning 7 million per year, combined. Last year, the top 27 Substacks earned 22 million combined. The top 5 Substacks earn over a million a year. Each.

Five people. Five million. How are you doing by comparison?

Not so good, hmm? That’s what I thought.

Thing is, Substack isn’t the same as when they launched in 2017. First they added Notes. All the better to connect with fellow writers, right? Then they added follow. Now you don’t need to cough up your email address. Just click follow.

And somehow, feels like the atmosphere changed. Now it’s not Mailchimp with network distribution to help writers find their readers. Now it’s some weird cross between social media and Medium, but you gotta pay every writer individually.

Writers are struggling and readers are mad about paywalled posts. Because hey, I want to support you. But how many people do you think I can pay?

Out of sheer curiosity, I googled “Substack Paywall.” Just wanted to see what I’d find. As you might expect, I found lots of instructions on how to set up the paywall. But also? Tons of cracks and hacks.

18 ways to read paywalled posts free. 10 ways to crack Substack. There used to be a browser plugin. Can you believe it? Just install this addon to Chrome and read all the paid Substacks free. It got shut down and thank goodness for that.

I found a reddit thread where a writer was complaining that it’s cancellations that make her crazy. People sign up. Pay. Then cancel. Rinse repeat. She doesn’t understand why. Stumbled across a possible answer on Notes.

One woman said when she wants to support a writer, she buys a subscription. Catches up on all the paywalled stuff. Then cancels and pays for someone else. Just trying to support as many people as she can. I wanted to ask how much “support” she thinks it is to throw $5 at a writer and move along to “help” the next writer.

Which isn’t to say that’s why all cancellations happen. Just shows that everyone has their own logic. Their own ideas of what “helping” a writer means.

I don’t have answers. I’m going to look for some. If there are techniques that help writers succeed, make it more likely to make a living off words, I’ll find them.

Until then — love to know what you think…

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, I also write on Medium — my top-read post this week is
I Asked ChatGPT How To Earn $1000 Online. It Was Hilarious.

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