While Notd was created to help publishers offer subscriptions to just sections of news, its versatile design makes it a great place to reach a wide audience. And we don't have ads, so that changes a lot. Here are some of the reasons why you should try out Notd (it doesn't cost anything to try it).

Advertising

We'll start with the obvious - no ads, so no tracking, no algorithms, no waiting for your screen to be re-drawn when a targeted ad is served to you. If you have come to Notd to read, you're not going to get interrupted by us. If you want to search for new things, we're not going to keep track of that so we can show you an ad related to it, or even suggest a note that has some of the same words in it, or a note that was read by someone searching for the same thing. That's not our job.

What we do give you is a filter that simplifies searching for things you are interested in. If you try it now, you probably won't find much, because we're still pretty new and don't have that many notes. But you can help change that.

Notifications

Since Notd is designed for subscriptions, you're going to expect new content regularly from the streams you subscribe to. We're not going to send you a text message or pop a notification on your phone, that could be annoying. Instead, we put the notification icon at the top of the screen, and when you tap on it, you get something like this:

You see a list of all the new notes from streams you have subscribed to, or are just following (because you may want to subscribe to them). You can decide when you want to read them, without being barraged because some network wants to get paid for showing you an ad.

Writing on Notd

Some people will use Notd to earn an income from their writing (or photography or podcasts). When you create a stream (and you can create as many as you like), you get to set the price for subscriptions. If you don't care about money, then readers will have to pay 1 cent per month or 10 cents per year to subscribe to your stream, and we keep all of that. If you set a price for your stream, then we take the greater of 1 cent per month or 10 per cent of the cost of the stream for each subscriber. We're able to efficiently allow such low prices because we use the Transact system for payments, which handles payments as small as one cent, without a minimum 30 cent fee for the transaction. This pricing system will allow writers without a large mainstream following to attract more subscribers, as they don't have to charge $5 per month.

Being able to charge for subscriptions is not the only benefit for writers. You can edit your published notes. They can be longer than 280 characters. You can ask friends or colleagues to discuss or debate notes on your stream (or even interview someone in real time - try that on twitter to see how they handle it). You can include high-res photos. And while you can't offer "free" content to give readers of taste of your writing, you can offer more than one stream, which can all have different prices, as low as one cent per month. One cent per month is almost free, and while new Notd users get $3 in free credit for signing up, it's actually free.

Supporting Your Favorite Cause

Notd is a great way for non-profit organizations to inform their supporters while raising money for their cause. Since they keep 90% of the subscription revenue their streams generate, Notd can be a substantial source of recurring revenue. Anyone can create a stream whose revenue can be given to a non-profit. A non-profit with 5000 subscribers to a stream that costs 50 cents per month can raise $27,000 per year (think how much one could raise if a celebrity with millions of fans was writing the stream).

Groups

When the web was created, it enabled all kinds of micro-services, for which there was no good way to pay for them, so the providers of those services turned to ads. Maximizing the revenue of these ads has been weaponized, with at least a few of these networks negatively impacting mental health and elections, and being used to threaten and harass people and coordinate riots and overthrows of governments

Many people think they can't quit Facebook because they need to be part of groups. That's why we created Community streams. Anyone can create and host a community stream, and set the price for being a member of it, just like any other stream. It can be for profit or you can just charge the minimum one cent per month to join. One advantage is since there are no ads on Notd, nobody will be collecting personal information about people who subscribe to your Community stream (that's actually two advantages)

Because we can edit this post, if you create a community stream with at least 10 members, we'll edit this post and mention it here.

Personal Streams

If you really don't like the way a big network distorts news and amplifies misinformation, or your personal information being used to target you for ads, you can send a message to the networks that do those things by using Notd to share posts with friends and family. Those friends and family members can respond to your posts with comments that you can control. Will it replace Facebook? Maybe, maybe not, but the more you and others use Notd, the more incentive other networks will have to act more responsibly. Yes, we know your friends may not know about Notd, but you can tell them about it on Facebook, Instagram, or twitter. Those networks are great for that.

Podcasts

Do you create a podcast every week (or more often) and need a way to monetize it without ads? Offering a subscription to a podcast on Notd is easy, it's just like publishing any other stream. Instead of posting text or images, you just upload the audio file. And Notd podcasts are compatible with Apple devices. And like other posts on Notd, subscribers to your podcast stream can have them emailed to them

Newsletters

A lot of writers have decided that email newsletters are a great way to independently monetize their work. Even though email has been criticized over the years, it is still a great way for a writer to distribute subscription content to loyal readers. While some platforms have gained popularity because, like Notd, they only take 10% (some take more) of subscription revenue, they force writers and publishers to charge a price so high that it limits the number of people who will subscribe. When readers can get magazines with many writers for a few dollars per month, it's difficult to justify paying $5 or $10 per month for the work of just one writer. Because Notd uses Transact for payments, writers can charge any price, whether 10 cents or $10 per month. And lower subscription rates will definitely attract more subscribers, allowing writers to make it up on volume.

In addition to email delivery, newsletters can be viewed on notd.io and the Notd app on iOS and Android devices. This medium may be preferable for many readers, as it lets them see what's new from all of their subscriptions without checking their email. It also provides more flexibility for writers, as it allows them to take advantage of several of Notd's features. Nobody wants emails with 5 MB attachments, but including sharp photos in a newsletter is not a problem on Notd.io. One common characteristic of newsletters is that the writers often go into detail, and that kind of depth could greatly benefit from Notd's annotation, where “hovernotes” can appear and expand on points in a post, when readers hover over text. This isn't possible in email. The web and app versions of Notd posts also allow writers to invite others to debate them thru notes.