I don't think you are missing anything, but it's interesting how different people have different ways of using the web.
I don't think I've ever wanted a web page to be split into pages, and I've always presumed it's done only to have more spaces for ad placement. I always go out of my way to submit links to a single page version, and although I've sometimes worried this might be depriving the destination site of revenue, I've never really considered that readers might prefer a paginated version.
If I wanted to continue reading something after a pause, I'd leave the page open in a tab (or more commonly, separate window), keeping it scrolled to the position I stopped reading. If I had to reopen it again, I'd scroll quickly through with the trackpad or space bar until I saw something unfamiliar, much in the way that I would visually scan to find my place in a magazine article.
How do you use the pagination to help you continue? By remembering the page number and clicking on it, by bookmarking the link to a specific page, or something else?
Edit to clarify: I agree with 'zipperg' below, and I'm not suggesting that infinite scroll is anything other than a usability nightmare. Instead, I'm expressing my strong preference for true-single page articles such as this one over both pagination and automated loading. Unless I'm the one missing something and this page is autoloading the main content so well that I'm not bothered by it? (I'm less dogmatic about user comments --- hiding them can often be a good thing)
I hate it when individual articles are broken into pages for no good reason, but I like pagination for main/index pages.
The biggest problem I've had with this kind of scrolling is when something happens that makes the next "page" fail to load for whatever reason. Usually the only thing that can be done in that case is to reload the whole thing, and then tediously scroll back to where you were. It's gotten better in recent implementations, but it still happens from time to time.
It's also annoying when I need to catch up after a long time away (or if it's a site I haven't read before). Depending on the site and what else I have going on at the time, I might read a given site over the course of days or weeks. I do usually leave the tab or window open, but sometimes it gets closed or reloaded for one reason or another. And again, as you say, you can scroll to the first unfamiliar thing, but when it's the equivalent of 10 or 20 pages back, that's a pain. And it's even worse when the "it won't load anymore" problem happens.
It's a usability tradeoff, but I have had many more frustrating experiences with infinite scrolling over the past few years than I ever had with paginated indices in the 20+ years I've been using the web.
I don't think I've ever wanted a web page to be split into pages, and I've always presumed it's done only to have more spaces for ad placement. I always go out of my way to submit links to a single page version, and although I've sometimes worried this might be depriving the destination site of revenue, I've never really considered that readers might prefer a paginated version.
If I wanted to continue reading something after a pause, I'd leave the page open in a tab (or more commonly, separate window), keeping it scrolled to the position I stopped reading. If I had to reopen it again, I'd scroll quickly through with the trackpad or space bar until I saw something unfamiliar, much in the way that I would visually scan to find my place in a magazine article.
How do you use the pagination to help you continue? By remembering the page number and clicking on it, by bookmarking the link to a specific page, or something else?
Edit to clarify: I agree with 'zipperg' below, and I'm not suggesting that infinite scroll is anything other than a usability nightmare. Instead, I'm expressing my strong preference for true-single page articles such as this one over both pagination and automated loading. Unless I'm the one missing something and this page is autoloading the main content so well that I'm not bothered by it? (I'm less dogmatic about user comments --- hiding them can often be a good thing)