How I Saved $99 a Year and Stopped Playing a Rigged Game

I'll admit it. I believed in it too!

I opened my Vocal Media profile with enthusiasm, paid for the Vocal+ subscription, and wrote 45 articles over the course of a year. Real stories, solid structure, valuable content. The kind of stuff that takes hours to write - because you actually care.

The result after twelv month of work? $0.89 in earnings. 148 declared reads. Almosta 4 cents per article. Less than one cent per read.

If I had been paid even just one dollar an hour for the time I invested, Vocal would owe me several hundred dollars. Instead they owe me 89 cents. And they probably calculated even those at a discount.

Then I wrote two new articles - long, thoughtful, carefully crafted. Both rejected.

Official reason: spammy language, uwanted links, and - brace yourself - suspected AI-generated content.

Let me stop here for a moment. Because this is where things become not just frustrationg, but deeply hypocritical.

Yes, I use AI. I say it openly and without shame. I write maintly in Italian. English is not my mother tongue and I don't speak it perfectly. I use AI to translate my articles - but the ideal, the concepts, the knowledge, the words are mine. 100%! AI is my translation tool, exactly as Google Translate is for millions of people every day.

So let me ask - does anyone stille use printed encyclopedias to understand a concept? No. Everyone uses Google, Wikipedia, and in recent years more and more apps like Gemini, Claud or Chat GPT that already have research built in. Nobody is ashamed of that. Nobody gets penalized for it.

Yet if you use AI to write or translate an article on Vocal, you get blocked.

And what about them? They use AI to analyze your content and decide if it was written by AI. They use AI to send 'intelligent' newslatters. They use AI to manage reading statistics - those statistics that suspiciously always low, always just below the threshold that would make you earn something decent. They use AI to optimize their internal processes and maximize their profits.

But you, the author, cannot use it. Beacause if you do, you content gets blocked.

Do you see the game now?

You bring the content - hours of work, ideas, research, passion. They profit from it. And the few cents that should come to you? The statistics say your stories didn't have enough readers. 148 read in a year across 45 articles. Do you believe that?

And honesty - why would I spend hours and hours of my life writing articles for Vocal if I can't speak freely, can't insert links, and earn absolutely nothing? I'm not crazy.

On March 26th my $99 subscription would have renewed. I cancelled just in time.

$99 saved. One year of frustration closed. And one more thing understood: tha game was rigged from the beginning.

I'm not angry anymore. I'm just wiser.

But let me say something else. Something that goes beyond Vocal.

We live in a completely absurd world sometimes. Thos who own the platform use AI for everything - to filter content, to manage statisticsa, to send automated email, to maximize their profits. Everything automated, everything optimized.

But you, the writer? You must do it all by hand. Manually. The old way. Because they decided so.

It's like a landowner who works his fields with a tractor - the most modern, powerful, efficient one available. But his workers? Shovels and rakes. Because he said so. No explanation. No discussion. Just the rule of whoever holds the power.

And if you dare to use the same tools as them? Blocked!

I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry.

And you - are you still playng a game you cannot win?

Oh, and one more thing. After I cancelled, they sent me an email telling me what I was missing out on. 

I'll let you imagine my reaction :-D

You know? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised at all if - assuming they ever approve this article - they end up banning me from Vocal Media altogether.

At this point, it would just be the cherry on top.

One last thing - to my regular readers: I apologize for the simple language in this article. You see, if I write the way I normally do, I get flagged as 'AI-generated content'. So here we are. Sending you a big hug - and hold on tight!