Harold Sperling

Contentful’s content modeling and APIs are superb. As a developer, I love how structured everything is, and the docs are excellent. The new Studio UI is a big improvement for editors. We built multiple frontends (web + mobile) off the same content model without headaches. Support and solution architects have been very responsive.

The product is fine until something goes wrong. Trying to get a human from support is nearly impossible. You're forced through endless chatbot loops and unhelpful articles. I had a simple bank connection issue that took weeks to resolve. For the price they charge, the lack of accessible support is insulting.

I love the writing experience, but I hate that I don't own my SEO. My posts live on a subdomain (unless I pay $50) and Substack doesn't give me granular control over meta tags or canonical links. It's hard to rank on Google compared to a WordPress site. I feel locked into their platform.

I upgraded to Premium mostly to get the barcode scanner back after they moved it behind the paywall. Honestly, it's worth it for the convenience. The macro tracking by gram (instead of percentage) is also key for my diet. The database is huge, though sometimes inaccurate because of user-submitted data. It helps me stay on track.

It was a great place to start investing. But as I learned more, the 0.25% fee started to feel unnecessary when I could just buy VTI or VOO myself on Fidelity for free. Also, their crypto offerings are limited. It's a great product for hands-off people, but if you want control, you'll eventually move on.

It's the standard for a reason, but it carries so much legacy code bloat. Simple things like dynamic linking to After Effects sometimes break for no reason. The new features are cool, but I wish they would spend a year just fixing bugs and improving stability instead of adding more AI tools. It's a love-hate relationship.

For my photography business, there is no better platform. Stories allow me to show behind-the-scenes content, and my main feed is my portfolio. I get the majority of my client inquiries through DMs. Despite the algorithm complaints, if you create high-quality, engaging content, you can still grow.