Reading that respects your intelligence.
Empirq is for ML engineers reading on the train, researchers checking a derivation at 11pm, data scientists debugging a paper before standup. The writing assumes you can keep up — and rewards you when you do.
Long-form, technical, no fluff.
Empirq's writers are the people you've been reading on newsletters and personal blogs for years — finally publishing somewhere their work renders correctly.
Built for actual reading.
Typography that respects the page.
Typography tuned for long reads on screens. Generous line-height, properly sized math, code blocks that don't overflow on mobile. Designed for forty minutes of focused reading, not seven seconds of scrolling.
Math and code render correctly.
KaTeX for inline and block math. Shiki for syntax highlighting in 35+ languages. Both rendered server-side — no flash of unrendered content, no client-side JavaScript bundles slowing down your phone.
Discovery with intent.
Filter by a hand-curated taxonomy of AI/ML subfields. Sort by depth, recency, or community signal. Bookmark posts to read later from your account menu, and build a reading list across publications. Discovery is a tool you wield, not a feed that wields you.
No autoplay video. No popups.
“Subscribe to keep reading” walls mid-paragraph? No. Newsletter modal after seven seconds? No. Cookie banner that eats half your screen? No. Just text, math, code, and the occasional embedded figure.
Email notifications when new posts land.
Subscribe to any writer (free or paid) and you'll get a short email — the post's title, excerpt, and a one-click link straight to the article. No marketing junk, no roundups, no surprise digests.
Dark mode that respects your eyes.
Properly contrasted, with code blocks that match. System-aware by default; manually toggleable in your settings. Won't strobe to white when you click into a popover at midnight.
Pay only the writers you want.
Subscriptions are per-writer — directly supporting the people whose work you read. No platform-wide fee, no bundles, no "Pro tier." Cancel any subscription anytime.
Read what writers publish for free.
Most writers publish a mix of free and paid posts. Free posts are accessible to anyone — no signup required for browsing, though signup unlocks bookmarks, your reading list, and email subscriptions.
- Browse all free posts
- Filter by subfield
- Email subscriptions to free tiers
- Bookmark and reading lists
Support the writers you read.
Subscriptions are per-writer, set by the writer (typically $5–$15/month or $50–$150/year). 90% goes directly to the writer via Stripe Connect; 10% covers Empirq's infrastructure (and 0% for founding writers).
- Full access to that writer's paid posts
- Email delivery of every new post
- Cancel anytime, pro-rated where applicable
- No platform-wide fees
No ads. No data sales. No engagement traps.
Empirq's revenue model is reader subscriptions paid directly to writers, with a 10% platform cut. That's the entire business. We don't have a second monetization track that depends on harvesting your attention.
No advertising.
Ever. Not display ads, not sponsored posts surfaced in your feed, not "promoted" content. The reader is the customer; the writer is the producer. We're paid by the platform fee.
No data brokers.
We don't sell reader data. We don't share it with advertisers. We don't have a "data partners" page in the privacy policy. Read the Privacy Policy — it's not long.
No engagement metrics that punish writers.
Writers are paid by subscription, not by clicks or time-on-page. There's no incentive to write 3,000 words to pad reading time, or to A/B test thumbnails for higher CTR.
No algorithmic feed.
Your feed is what writers you follow have published recently, plus what's been upvoted in subfields you're subscribed to. There's no opaque ranking model deciding what you see.
Ready to read?
Free account, no credit card. Browse the feed, follow writers, bookmark posts.