What I don't like about Vocal

I don't think Vocal understands their audience.

Multiple people have said they have spent their last dollar on a subscription. They did this because Vocal offered hope in the form of elusive prize money, received only after entering subscription-exclusive content.

That is not okay.

The thing that makes this stick is the fact that the leaders make promises. We want to be inclusive, they say. We want to be transparent. We want to pay people lots of money.

They really, really want you to believe that.

It doesn't feel inclusive. It feels like an exclusive money-grab.

I'm not their target audience. I'm not about to pay more money than I'm making--and that's going to take a while.

At one point, 100% of the challenges were off limits to me. You know what would help incentivize people to get a subscription when they don't have much money?

Letting them into those competitions that make such big promises.

I know they're trying to notice and support people, and that this is a fairly big job, but I don't really have a hope of getting... anything, really. I'm not willing to pander. I am not going to gush about how wonderful they are.

Those are two things that will get you noticed. Those are things that will get you top story. Those are things that will get you tips. Those are things that will get the staff saying, "What a good piece!"

Inclusive? Nah.

I appreciate the chance that challenges are supposed to give writers, but the reality is that everyone who doesn't win is going to feel left out. It leaves them wondering why their piece wasn't good enough. And that's the definition of exclusion.

The thing is, when I see other people who keep going in spite of bad grammar or zero prizes, it inspires me to keep going. I don't want to point it out, because I don't want to insult anyone, but the thing about bad writing is that it makes you feel about your own. It makes you feel more capable. And I know from experience that if bad writers keep writing, they become good writers. It just takes practice.

If you want people to keep going, it's in your best interest to give them achievable goals. That means more than pennies on the post. That means incremental rewards that get people invested--before you make them pay up.

Webtoons does this well. They offer most of their comics for free, and then provide a few updates that the reader can pay to see early. This, I think, is a model that encourages more investment--people frequently leave comments about spending all their money on episodes that they could have seen for free within a week.

Their other model is slightly less engaging--they offer a certain amount of free episodes on a completed comic, and then force you to "unlock" one episode per day. You can buy more episodes if you'd like, and I think a lot of people do--but they don't seem to do so as frequently as they buy fastpass episodes.

The model, I think, lacks a certain amount of engagement from the reader. There's more time to get distracted. The notifications help, but there's nothing like seeing a great big colored update every single week.

I think it would be slightly more effective if they stuck to five free episodes a day. It's enough to for the reader to become really invested, and I think they'd be more likely to pay for at least one more episode.

The key element, though, is the fact that Webtoons lets you choose.

They often run "events" where readers can obtain coins for free by reading a certain number of episodes for the chosen comics.

This piques interest--they choose a broad variety of comics, so it's likely that the reader will be introduced to something new. It sparks their motivation to keep reading, which means there's an even bigger chance that they'll continue to be invested--which often means that they'll spend even more later on.

It's also for everyone--if you miss it, that's a bummer, but it's not like you weren't picked and others were. Everyone gets a chance--a fair chance. Not one in a hundred or a thousand--everyone who participates gets a bonus if they complete the reading.

Video games have this down to a science. It's actually a problem that can rewire your brain.

Vocal does not seem like they want to motivate people. They seem like they want money.

I'm also concerned about the staff. I have not seen evidence that pieces are actually read before they are approved. I've seen a piece that got shoved into a category it didn't belong in because of the first song title in a long list. Typos get through. It doesn't seem like pieces are vetted at all--just shoved down the assembly line, whether the author likes the category their piece ends up in or not.

To me, this indicates a lack of time. When the moderators have a big backlog, they have little incentive to be thorough. The fact that such mistakes are made shows me that the staff is overworked, undertrained, or not paying attention.

Oh, but Vocal doesn't want new moderators. You can keep an eye on our page for new job listings, they told me.

This does not give me confidence in the management. It shows me that they don't see a problem, or don't think the problem should be fixed, or that they can fix it without outside help. The fact that this is an ongoing shows that it isn't working. They need help. They need to make a change. And they're refusing to admit it.

Optimism will keep you afloat, but if you don't pair it with realism you're going to sink anyway. Saying you aren't going to crash doesn't mean you never will.

I do not think Vocal is being managed well. I say this because I've seen similar things happen before. People start with good intentions and flowery language, and they flame out because they focus on the wrong thing.

Vocal needs to focus on its stories. Those will make the most effective marketing material--people who like or relate to them will be drawn in, whether they're incentivized by the cash or not.

Grandiose offers are also a dime a dozen. The more people Vocal attracts, the slimmer everyone's chances of winning challenges will be. People are used to being taken advantage of. People are used to not seeing follow-through.

Quite frankly, the person who is mostly likely to jump at the offer of money is the one who is desperate for it.

To offer this as a carrot on a stick is downright predatory.

I wouldn't have said that when I first joined. Vocal offers me what I don't have anywhere else--a chance to earn from what I post, without having to set up any ad hosting or find appropriate affiliates to market.

The focus on getting people to join the club, and the fact that more and more contests seem to be subscriber only, have me thinking Vocal's tactics are getting pretty skeevy. This was only strengthened by the "gift" of a free month of Vocal+. I didn't ask. I didn't say yes. They did not ask for my consent, they just assumed I'd be thrilled.

I know myself. I was depressed. I was in a slump. I was not in a place where I was able to utilize the "gift"... at all. If I'd been able to choose, I would have deferred it to a time when I knew that I did have the energy and motivation to write, and would be able to utilize it properly.

I don't think management thought this through--or if they did, then they only did so from a "What can we get out of our vision" perspective.

I understand they need money to pay money, but Moleskine is a pretty big sponsor. Why are they targeting the little guys?

Incentives such as a reward for your 50th story are pretty helpful, but that feels so far away. As I was saying about incremental rewards to keep people invested--they need to give people more, from the very beginning, if they want them to stay.

Could that be why they only share user stories on their social media accounts? Could that be why they do not share those stories in the ads they pay for? After all, they have to pay for every view the story gets.

If more users will make it harder to win challenges, then the reverse is true for viewer-based earnings--the more people who become invested in using Vocal as a platform, the more money the current users will make.

Back to the comment about transparency.

I haven't had an issue with it, but Vocal bans religious content... sometimes.

They tried to "clarify" and... didn't, really. The line between acceptable and unacceptable religious content is muddier than ever.

There's an entire community for political content. If you allow that, then you need to allow a space for religious content as well. It's a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and many find it to be healing, uplifting, encouraging, and familiar. It's a part of our history and our cultures. It's not something to be banned.

You want to protect your community? Train your staff on how to recognize indoctrination and dogwhistles. They aren't even vetting hostile behavior towards other users at this point.

Which, of course, is very difficult when you're focusing on shelling out big bucks on advertising that tells everyone how much you're going to pay them while asking them to please, please, please sign up for our paid subscription, we'll give you half of it back as an incentive so can you please overlook that it's more than eight times what you've made from this platform so far?

The people need to be prioritized. When you prioritize the rules, or the money, you don't make this an inclusive place to be. When you prioritize the people, the money and the following come naturally.

I want to love Vocal. There aren't really any other platforms that let you earn from the jump on blog posts in the same way. Other blogging platforms require a certain number of pageviews or followers before you can qualify for ad revenue, and wordpress requires a paid subscription. This is one of the only sites left that allows you to make money with your writing from the get-go.

(Triond was a viable option for a while, but it shut down with no warning.)

It just isn't run well.

I hope that changes.