I thought I made it clear how to navigate (why you would want to go to page 2 if you hadn't finished page 1?), but I guess you're right. I'm pushing navigation arrow buttons live right now. Sorry about that--Internet connection at my place is currently dying every minute. Pushing now!
Sorry, but if you need a paragraph of text to explain to your users how to navigate, you're doing it wrong. The "individual tiny pages, turned one by one so each has no context" metaphor, while a necessary evil for printed books, is pointless and broken on the web.
Most Web users, especially those drinking from firehoses like HN, don't actually read pages end to end, they skim them looking for interesting bits worth reading. This is why they're skipping page 1 without reading it, and since your navigation system doesn't allow "skimming", you're seeing people giving up in frustration.
Another way of looking at it: I still have no idea what pen.fm is trying to do, and the only thing I'll remember about it is the broken navigation system. This is probably not the first impression you want to give people.
Good catch. Beta release will accomodate all the things then, including a clean view that may or may not still include social feedback components.
Even more fun, the bigger scheme includes the ability to export these stories directly on-demand to different e-reading formats (epub, mobi, pdf). So, if you want PDF, you'll get it. With enough content in the network, we'll take on content discovery in a big way so we make sure you don't waste your time having to skim so much.
Just as a thought experiment, how would you feel about reading a very thick magazine in which each page was blank except for a single sentence? After reading a sentence you could flip to the next page, which would also have only a single sentence. You could read all the same material, but only see one sentence at a time. Would you enjoy reading like that?
