Ev Williams to step down from Medium

Re:Ev Williams to step down from Medium by skybrian on Tuesday July 12, 2022 @04:48PM (#32075470)

That's not how it worked. Some authors got paid a big advance in return for giving up all subscription revenue for one year. In at least some cases, authors said they would have made more money taking the regular subscription deal, where Substack gets a cut.

So in those cases, Substack provided financing and made money on it in the end. I don't know if that's true on average, though.

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Re:Ev Williams to step down from Medium by jacobr1 on Tuesday July 12, 2022 @07:01PM (#32076899)

It is a classic platform bootstrapping model. It worked with new book publishers in the 1800s too. It worked for new video game consoles, etc ...

The content creator doesn't fully trust the new publisher/platform, so they need upfront monetary assurance beyond a normal advance/royalty type deal, in case the platform fails. Likewise the platform values exclusives from big names that will drive demand for the platform. So the platform gives up potential upside to secure the exclusivity rights and the content creators get a premium.

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Re:Ev Williams to step down from Medium by Lazare on Tuesday July 12, 2022 @08:54PM (#32077759)

I've seen a fair bit of discussion about this, and so far, every author who I've seen talk about this has said they took the deal and came out behind, or they refused the deal but would have come out behind if they'd taken it, ie, subscription revenue ended up exceeding the offered advance.

I imagine there must be some authors out there who didn't mmet Substack's expectations, but they're apparently few and far between.

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