#advertising also sucks bc things having to be ad-friendly limits what they can make

[mossflower]

tumblr users suddenly huge fans of advertising

[unityrain24]

Why you don't talk Wattpad ? I feel more.comfortable in there actually just curious abt it

Ah!

So wattpad was the first fanfic site i used, starting back in middle school. Ao3 seemed sketchy to me at the time, and wattpad was well-known and looked clean and neat and tidy and professional. I read on there for a small while, and even posted, before trying ao3 and discovering it was way better. While i still sometimes post on wattpad, i don't read on it anymore.

Below are some of my reasons as to why i think ao3 is superior to wattpad:

EVERY aspect of ao3 is 100% completely free. No paid stories. No ad-free version

ao3 doesn't have any ads whatsoever. Wattpad does.

ao3 is run by volunteers, while wattpad is definitely a Company. Wattpad is advertising to you, tracking what you read and recommending things to you (yet somehow really only recommending their paid stories rather than what you would actually read). It reeks of capitalism.

Watpad also tracks where the readers are reading from, their gender, and age. They show these things to me as an author. And i think that's creepy.

ao3 is set up as a library/archive, not a social media site or shopping site. This is really refreshing.

Ao3 is completely customizable if you have an account. You can change the colours, fonts, and even formatting to cater to what you personally want. Wattpad only has its usual mode, and maybe dark mode if you have the app?

Ao3 feels far more personal and private, which actually makes any community built there feel way nicer + more genuine. Comments on ao3 and comments on wattpad feel different.

Ao3 has a much, much better search engine. Got can search and sort by title, author, fandom, rating (general, teen, mature, explicit), tags, language, length, date, ship, ship dynamic (m/f, f/f, etc) and more. On wattpad it's really hard to find what you want to read, due to 1) it's search engine sucks 2) even when you search something specific, their completely unrelated paid stories come up in the search too and 3) their tagging system isn't that good

ao3 had an AMAZING tagging system. and the tags aren't hidden either, nor is the tag limit small. You see all tags to a story before you even read the summary, so you know if you even WANT to read the summary. Tags make searching for what you want easier, and also knowing what stories to avoid (which is especially good if you have triggers!!)

wattpad only has general and mature labels, and no content warning. Ao3 has general, teen, mature, and explicit, and well as required warnings. All these things are easily, simply, and clearly displayed.

once again TAGS

tags my beloved <33 what would i ever do without you

While uploading to ao3 is more steps to learn, once you know how it works it's WAY more efficient & easier than wattpad. I still upload to wattpad bc i feel bad for anyone who started reading my fics there before i got ao3, but. I have to like force myself to upload. It is a fucking pain in the ass and it is so SO glitchy and not user-friendly at all. I dread uploading to wattpad.

also idk if it's just me but i fell like i find much higher quality stories on ao3. Obviously someone's story doesn't have to be high quality, it's art, it's an expression of the soul, art doesn't have to be good. But as a reader i want to read something high quality that i will like. And i feel like i find that more on ao3.

anyways i love ao3 so much. if you are still using wattpad and are too scared to try anything else, PLEASE consider trying it. While there is a lot of fucked up stuff on ao3, but it is made very clear what those things are so you can avoid them. Ao3 has some really beautiful, meaningful, soul-wrenching things too. ao3 has everything. it's a library, it's an archive. it doesn't have recipes though. And if it does? well, that's against the law.....