cnYES publicly offers more than ad inventory: video, events, sponsored features, editorial production, and historically, B2B news licensing. Free content attracts readers, while the platform balances advertiser outcomes, production costs, and editorial trust.
A CSV export does not mean a creator can move an entire business. Posts, email consent, membership status, billing relationships, URLs, and recommendation traffic are six different assets that require separate tests.
Medium and Vocus can both deliver discovery, but the exchange is different. Medium controls distribution to strangers and withholds new subscribers' email addresses; Vocus handles Taiwanese payments, invoices, and member operations, but its public documentation proves only that order data—not complete email identities or payment relationships—is exportable.
Patreon charges a 10% platform fee to new creators who publish after August 4, 2025, bundling free membership, paid tiers, commerce, community, and discovery. Creators can export email addresses, but a CSV does not carry recurring payment authorization, conversations, or platform distribution.
Substack charges 10% of all paid-subscription revenue in exchange for publishing, payments, a recommendation network, and a shorter checkout path. Break-even depends on retained incremental value—not on subtracting 10% from the company's self-reported 25–30% network share.
Creator-platform selection is not a ranking. A Taiwan-based creator should pass four gates—payments, discovery, control, and operations—before choosing a platform, managed SaaS, or self-hosted site. No CSV represents a complete reader and billing relationship.
Choosing a creator platform is not about finding the longest feature list. It assigns responsibility for bringing readers, collecting payments, holding data, and operating the system; pricing is only one of four gates.