Two Years of Vocal+

I've decided to not renew my Vocal+ membership because of many reasons. Let's get into it...

I've been on Vocal+ for nearly two years. I found out about it on some random youtube video talking about a few ways to make passive income. As I do enjoy writing, tremendously, I thought this might be fun. Vocal made me think it's fun too, because they allocated a little bonus after I published my tenth story. Unfortunately, that's all the fun there was.

My first red flag was a challenge for vocal+ members that was won by someone who did not have the +icon. When I addressed it, nobody got back to me. The lack in communication made me feel disrespected as I think it is unprofessional.

Then I started tracking my Read status, as the earnings are calculated on the reads. I would publish a story, have numerous likes, comments, conversations interacting with other vocal members, but my reads will display '2'. The first time this happened, they responded and allocated four more reads. It happened two more times and when addressed, it was just ignored. The lack of transparency and control that the calculation of reads have, comes across as deceitful. They calculate it, based on how far down the screen the reader goes and some other bs. A read should be a read. What about poems that are three lines long? That screen is not moving anywhere, so that might mean they never count as a read...

Next, was the blatant religious discrimation. I wrote a lovely piece that may have only gotten one read... from a subscriber. This piece was part of a challenge. Challenge publications tend to get more reads, as I assume people want to read what others have contributed toward the challenge. It's almost like they have a list of keywords that are blocked on the back end of their system, and J E S U S is definitely one of them. To even think, that I have to find creative ways to write about Him, in a so-called first world, freedom for all, country is shocking to me. Change is on the horizon though. It's looking good!

As I peruse other articles though, there's plenty of freedom when it comes to writing about witchcraft, Krishna, Buddha, Allah, abortion, yoga, tarot cards, love spells, addiction, cutting, dark matter... you get the idea. So I decided to dig a little deeper on the internet on who exactly Vocal is. I learned that they are a far-left writing platform. Enough said. It saddens me that the simple joys in life have become politicized. VICE.com published an eye-opening article in 2022 that I found recently.

It's also extremely difficult to drive traffic to Vocal. When I sent someone a link of something I wrote, it asked them to create a profile. So I ended up just sending them a screenshot. They make it intentionally difficult to succeed.

I most likely would have cancelled my membership a year earlier but looking at my bank statement, I realized there was an auto-renewal. Great! So now I was stuck with them for one more year. But that year is coming to a close. I did meet some pleasant people on here though. I wish everyone finds the joy they seek in life, doing what brings them happiness.

So this platform may not be for me but maybe it is for someone else. If you like writing about dark stuff or if you tend to air your dirty laundry on here, in the name of mental health, they love that stuff. Their algorithm will push it to the front. You will win Top Story and maybe even win a challenge because of it. After two years, I've made $1.19 from reads. At that rate, it would take me 35 years to withdraw the minimum, hahaha!

I will still pop in now and then. But I can say that the Vocal+ membership is definitely not worth it. If you have a positive, happy outlook on life, that energy will be better spent elsewhere.