Why Simily.co Started Off Wrong
My Stats + Why I Think it Might Sink
First Impressions + Stats
I created my Simily account about a week ago, reused my content for Medium and posted it on Simily. I have four posts up there, two of which are fiction and two are non-fiction. I have earned a full $0.64 in this time. Here are my stats at the moment:
The main thing that motivated me to create an account on Simily.co was that being an Indian resident, I cannot get into the Medium Partner Program, and I wanted to see if Simily’s reception is worth it.
First thing I noticed on the site was the Canva graphics and the really bad interface that crashed almost every time I clicked on a button on page. But it did not bother me too much, to be fair.
Impressions after a Week, Now
I do not have any major concerns with it, however I did notice a couple of things that make me worry about the platform.
- The platform is quite generous. The people it is attracting are creating an account on it not to write unique content or try it out for other unique reasons, but just to see its pay model through the reception of their articles.
Most of the articles on Medium about Simily also state that they did something similar, so did I: recycling our Medium content. They did have ‘fiction’ as their main niche so to say, but it has expanded now. The uniqueness now rests solely on the pay model. - What this means is that a lot of people are switching/trying out Simily.co just to post and return to look at their stats. I am doing the same. And considering that free plan users only get five free reads a month, it makes sense why people would do that.
- The ‘writing community is, thus, disappointing. I joined a couple of groups on Simily. co to see what the interactions are like. It is mostly just people coming to post about their own story/article, asking people to read it, and leaving.
- And when people are leaving comments on my posts (stories/articles) which I am promptly deleting, are about checking out their own stories. Now some of them have adapted new techniques: creating another account and hyping up their own content by saying “I found this really cool story you should check out” and nothing about my story.
- Now, I want to make it clear that I do not blame any of these people. The ‘rewarding’ or incentive module that Simily.co has created without giving us reasons to post unique content on them or plan out things specifically for Simily, it is understandable that it is being used the way it is.
- Last, but definitely not the least, this new thing is going around: (???)
It is a stock profile, this is the second comment of this type that I received on my story about a capitalist destroying a town by manipulating people.
What my Point was:
People are finding creative ways to use Simily.co, but none of them involve practices that Simily.co may have intended. Its generosity is backfiring, and the site is not building towards a community of any sorts. It could have done better if the incentive model was a little different than what it is, and if there was some potential for unique content creation (like for Substack it is newsletters, etc) at least in the beginning, rather than it being a genre specific thing (which they’ve widened anyway now).
Creating a community and a dedicated audience is extremely important for a site that is trying to do what Simily (or Medium) is. And the start that Simily has gotten does not look very promising.
I still wish them well.
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