半扩散工作室 #4
【精选阅读】一个对读者更好的互联网 A better internet for readers
原文标题：A better internet for readers
作者： Chris Best, Hamish Mckenzie, and Jairaj Seth
原文链接：
Substack的创始人宣言。本文的翻译使用ChatGPT辅助完成。
互联网彻底改变了阅读方式，但它却未能实现乌托邦，反而带来了混乱。现在我们在线阅读的主要地方都充满了喧嚣、压力，还为广告剥削着我们的思维。虽然有出色的阅读产品，但它们都很小众，自从Google Reader消失后，科技巨头似乎对它们失去了兴趣。相反，我们不得不忍受弹出窗口的骚扰和由社交媒体主导的媒体经济，这让我们变得愤怒和愚蠢。
👆原文：The internet revolutionized reading, but instead of a utopia, it has delivered a mess. The main places where we read online today are cacophonic, stressful, and milking our minds for ad dollars. There are great reading products, but they are niche, and the tech giants seem to have lost interest in making them since the demise of Google Reader. Instead, we are left to contend with a fusillade of pop-ups and a Big Social-dominated media economy that is making us angry and stupid.
但是，读者对互联网仍然寄予了巨大的希望。它依然让新闻、信息和文化更民主化，使得任何人、任何地方都可以享受到过去只属于特权阶层的作品。它强大的网络工具仍然可以创造惊人的共同阅读体验，它的传播效应可以让流行文化飞到月球。诀窍在于将这些元素与一个激励质量优于肤浅参与、信任连接优于部落暴躁的经济体系结合在一起。没有人真正掌握了这门艺术。
👆原文：But the internet still holds tremendous promise for readers. It remains true that it democratizes access to news, information, and culture, so that anyone, anywhere can enjoy work that in previous generations was reserved for the privileged. Its powerful networking tools can still produce amazing communal reading experiences, and its viral dynamics can take memes to the moon. The trick is to weave these elements together with an economic system that incentivizes quality over superficial engagement, and trusted connections over tribal tantrums. No one has quite mastered that art.
也许我们过于天真，但我们在Substack并没有放弃希望。我们认为仍然有可能利用互联网的力量为读者创造一个更美好的世界。我们可以看到一个在线阅读是一种乐趣的未来，页面快速加载、干净整洁、导航简单。我们相信一种让读者通过直接支持他们最重视的作者和作品来塑造文化的商业模式，从而创造一种激励质量和在即使领域再小也追求卓越的激励体系。我们认为阅读可以在不让人分心的情况下成为一种社交活动。我们相信，受信任的同行推荐可以推动一个发现系统，帮助世界上最好的读者找到世界上最好的作品，无论它来自哪里。
👆原文：Perhaps it is naive, but we at Substack haven’t given up hope. We think it is still possible to harness the internet’s powers to create a better world for readers. We can see a future where reading online is a pleasure, with fast-to-load posts, clean and uncluttered pages, and simple navigation. We believe in a business model that gives readers the power to help shape culture by directly supporting the writers and work they most value, leading to an incentive system that rewards quality and applies upward pressure for excellence in even the smallest of niches. We think that reading can be social without being distracting. And we bet that trusted peer recommendations can drive a discovery system that helps the world’s best readers find the world’s best work—no matter where it comes from.
所以我们要做的是：我们将为读者创建一个美丽而杰出的地方，延伸我们为作家建立的平台，并利用科技为文化争取最大利益。
👆原文：So here’s what we’re going to do: We are going to make a beautiful and exceptional place for readers that extends the platform we’ve built for writers and uses the best of technology to get the best for culture.
在未来，我们将增加功能并改进我们的阅读APP，使它们变得越来越有用和有趣。您不仅可以拥有一个安静的阅读地方，还可以与您认识的最聪明的人一起消磨时光。这将是一个您可以为您的文化兴趣建立家园，即使没有出版物也可以建立读者群。所有这些都将在一个由订阅代表的有意义连接的网络中紧密联系在一起，优先考虑信任而不是使用时长或吸引的目光。
👆原文：Over the coming months and years, we’ll be adding features and evolving our reading apps so that they feel increasingly useful and fun. You’ll not only have a quiet place to read but also somewhere to hang out with the smartest people you know. It’ll be a space where you can establish a home for your cultural interests and build an audience even if you don’t have a publication. And it will all be tied together in a network of meaningful connections—represented by subscriptions—that prioritize trust over time spent or eyeballs captured.
这将是互联网上最好的阅读体验。
👆原文：It will be the best reading experience on the internet.
一个Substack作家是谁一直很明确。作家与平台之间有着直接而明显的关系，他们在那里出版、成长并获得报酬。但直到最近，很少有人会称自己为Substack的读者。随着时间的推移，我们认为这种动态将会改变。即使在这里作家与读者的关系仍然是神圣的，Substack读者的存在也将变得越来越明显。
👆原文：It has been clear for a while now who a Substack writer is. Writers have a direct and obvious relationship with the platform, the place where they publish, grow, and get paid. But until recently, few people would have described themselves as a Substack reader. Over time, we think this dynamic will change. Even while the writer-reader relationship will remain sacrosanct here, it will become ever clearer that there is such a thing as a Substack reader.
Substack的读者可能正处于退出在线媒体的边缘，因为他们对社交信息流的毒性感到厌恶。这是一个想要高质量新闻和文化的人。这是一个愿意考虑各种来源的人，即使是挑战他们的假设。这是一个想要以有尊严的方式在网上找到生活方式的人。
👆原文：A Substack reader is someone who might be on the verge of opting out of online media because of their aversion to the toxicity of their social feeds. It’s someone who wants high-quality news and culture. It’s someone who’s willing to consider a range of sources, even ones that challenge their assumptions. It’s someone who wants to find a way to be online with dignity.
在为这些读者创建一个家园的过程中，我们还可以更好地服务于作家。Substack将是那些愿意支付作家费用的人们的聚集地，新老作家都可以在建立自己的受众和影响力时与他们打交道。
👆原文：In creating a home for these readers, we can also better serve writers. Substack will be a gathering place for people who have a propensity to pay the writers they trust—and that’s a group that writers new and established can address when it comes to building their own audiences and influence.
读者可能是互联网上最重要的群体，但他们一直像乞丐一样被对待。今天主导文化领域的公司似乎只考虑读者的思维，只要它可以被欺骗去割让注意力的丰富资源——“信息革命”的黑金。多么令人失望的革命。我们以为我们将生活在亚历山大图书馆中；相反，我们正在其下水道中艰难行走，希望能在湿漉漉的纸张上找到智慧。
👆原文：Readers might be the internet’s most important constituency, and yet they have been treated like paupers. The companies that dominate today’s cultural sphere seem to consider the reader’s mind only insofar as it can be tricked into ceding its bounty of attention—the black gold of the “Information Revolution.” What a disappointing revolution it has been. We thought we were going to live in the Library of Alexandria; instead we’re wading through its sewers hoping to find wisdom on wet pages pasted to the walls.
我们作为读者所面临的文化挑战影响着我们的思考和行动方式，我们对它们的回应将决定我们如何面对作为社会所面临的许多问题。当作家乔治·桑德斯在Substack上推出Story Club时，他写道：“我们如何讲述和接收故事对我们的思维至关重要，这反过来又决定了我们如何（多么充满爱心，多么充实）地生活。”
👆原文：The cultural challenges that we face as readers affect how we think and act together, and our response to them will determine how we confront the many problems we face as a society. When the author George Saunders launched Story Club on Substack, he wrote: “[H]ow we tell and receive stories is central to how we think, which, in turn, determines how well (how lovingly, how fully) we live.”
我们阅读的内容很重要。
👆原文：What we read matters.
我们在Substack的工作是为了为读者构建更好的媒体生态系统和一个更好的世界。我们将最大程度利用互联网如何将作家和读者聚集在一起的方式，并将其与一个让每个人都能赢的经济体系结合起来。我们希望这种方法可以成为媒体的新的开始。这是我们建立新的文化经济引擎的任务的核心。
👆原文：The work we are doing at Substack is our attempt to contribute to a better media ecosystem and a better world for readers. We will take the best of how the internet brings writers and readers together and couple it with an economic system that lets everyone win. We hope this approach can be the beginning of something new for the media. It is core to our mission of building a new economic engine for culture.
我们感激与您一同完成这项工作。我们无法想象有什么更有意义或更有趣的事情了。让我们翻开新的一页。
👆原文：We’re grateful to be doing it with you. We can’t imagine anything more meaningful or fun. Let’s turn the page.