She disliked how the platform portrayed itself as a haven for independent writers with fewer resources while offering six-figure advances to several prominent white men. The hands-off content moderation policy, which allowed transphobic and anti-vaccine language, did not sit well with her. She also didn't like earning $20,000 in subscription revenue, and then giving up $2,600 in fees to Substack and its payment processor.

So last year, Ms. Han moved her newsletter, We, The Citizens, to a competing service. She now pays $780 a year to publish through Ghost, but said she still made roughly the same in subscriptions.

"It wasn't too hard," she said. "I looked at a few options that people were talking about."