This is the Huge Difference between Medium and Substack

Who controls the audience?

Photo by Brandon Erlinger-Ford on Unsplash

Do you own the audience, or do you write for someone else’s audience?

This question is at the heart of the difference between Medium and Substack.

Here’s what it means and why it should be important to you.

The audience belongs to Medium, not the writers.

Here’s a “high-quality image” to illustrate how Medium interacts with the audience and writers.

Image created in Word.

The audience signs up for a Medium membership (sign up here if you aren’t currently a paying Medium member). That money flows into Medium. Medium then distributes that money to writers based on the time the audience spends reading their articles.

Medium distributes articles to the audience that meet a certain standard of quality and that they believe the audience would want to read.

Medium’s content teams regularly review stories published on the platform, selecting those that exhibit a high level of quality for additional distribution in Medium’s emails, apps, homepage, and more.

Medium values quality content — fresh ideas, unique perspectives, varied voices, smart thinking — and we believe readers do too. - Medium’s Distribution Standards

So there you go.

Medium carefully observes the type of content their audience wants, and they promote articles and stories that meet their audience’s expectations.

This is smart by Medium, by the way. They want to attract and retain paying members. The way you do that is to continue to put high-quality stories in front of the audience.

So, understand that the audience on Medium doesn’t belong to you - the writer. The audience on Medium belongs to Medium.

The audience belongs to the writers, not to Substack.

Here’s another bit of my masterful artwork to illustrate the difference between Substack and Medium.

Another image created in Word.

On Substack, the audience signs up for your email list, and from there, you communicate directly with them. Substack provides a platform for readers to find writers and then subscribe to writers they want to read more from.

Substack makes its money by taking a 10% cut of subscription revenue if you decide to turn on paid subscriptions. Otherwise, Substack is free to use.

Substack confirms that you - the writer - have complete control over your audience.

Without ads and algorithms to get in the way, you can sustain a direct relationship with your readers and retain full control over your creative work.

You will always own your content and your relationships with your subscribers. - Substack basics

So should you dump Medium for Substack?

That’s going to be a great big “NO” from me.

Why?

Because acquiring readers through Substack is actually more complex than through Medium because, through Substack, you still have to bring a lot of the audience to your writing.

On Medium, they bring the audience to you. All you have to focus on is writing quality content about topics the audience on Medium is interested in, and you will have readers flowing to you.

While Substack is improving its discoverability tools, you still stand a better chance of getting many views from Medium in a short time.

My suggestion is to write on Medium and grow your email list with Substack. Keep writing on both platforms because both have a lot to offer writers.