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Paying for wisdom
你愿意为知识付费吗？
Zhang Zhiyuan, who works in the film and television industry, uses the De Dao app when he goes to work every day, according to Xinhua News Agency. The app offers written articles and podcasts from famous personalities that the user must pay for, with topics ranging from music to economics.
据新华社报道，影视从业人员张志远每天上班路上都会用一款app——“得到”。这款应用向用户提供了付费的名人文章和播客，涉及了从音乐到经济等话题。
Zhang is not alone. By May 2017, De Dao had 7 million users, according to Bloomberg.
并非只有张志远一人如此。据彭博社报道，截至2017年5月，“得到”app已拥有七百万用户。
The De Dao platform is just a small part of China's knowledge economy. These days, more Chinese people are willing to pay for knowledge online than before, according to an article published by AFP in September.
“得到”这一平台只是中国知识经济中很小的一部分。法新社9月发布的一篇文章称，和过去相比，如今越来越多的中国人愿意为在线知识付费。
Ximalaya FM, another popular online learning platform, had about 450 million users as of January 2018, Zhou Xiaohan, the company's vice president, told People's Daily. The platform allows people to pay for and listen to online learning courses.
另一大热门在线学习平台喜马拉雅的副总裁周晓涵在接受《人民日报》采访时表示，截至2018年1月，喜马拉雅已拥有约4.5亿用户。该平台为人们提供了线上付费的音频课程。
Many Chinese people used to be unwilling to pay for content online. However, many internet users' attitudes have changed since they began to see quality content as valuable, wrote China Daily.
许多中国人过去都不愿意为线上内容付费。然而，不少互联网用户在看到优质内容的价值后，态度发生了转变，《中国日报》写道。
Lou Meijing, an analyst from iiMedia Research, a Beijing consultancy, told Financial Times that many Chinese people can get free content online. However, they hope to get better one when the free content cannot meet their demand.
北京咨询公司艾媒咨询的分析师娄梅静在接受《金融时报》采访时表示，许多中国人都能获得线上免费内容。但当免费内容无法满足需求时，他们希望获得更优质的内容。
In fact, 75 percent of internet users are happy to pay for quality content, according to a 2017 report by Chinese science news website Guokr and internet company Netease.
据中国科技新闻网站果壳以及互联网公司网易2017年发布的一份报告显示，事实上，75%的互联网用户愿意为优质内容付费。
Meanwhile, Chinese people, especially the young, are suffering from so-called knowledge anxiety. In such a rapidly changing society, people are afraid of not being able to get the latest information and feeling left out, according to The Wall Street Journal.
与此同时，中国人，尤其是年轻人，正处于所谓的“知识焦虑”之中。据《华尔街日报》报道，在如此瞬息万变的社会中，人们害怕无法获得最新消息，而被周围人冷落。
“In big cities, people are too busy to read books and watch movies. Famous personalities can teach you knowledge that lets you seem as if you have read the book or watched the movie yourself,” De Dao user James Lu told the Financial Times.
“在大城市，人们太忙了，没有时间看书和看电影。名人可以教你知识，让你看起来就像是读了这本书或看了这部电影，”“得到”用户詹姆斯·陆在接受《金融时报》采访时表示。
However, this way of learning has also been criticized.
但这种学习方式也遭到了批评。
"Knowledge is not the same as information. It's certainly not something that can be gained by watching a few television shows, any more than it can be gained by reading a few books or listening to a few podcasts," Sixth Tone reporter Tao Lixing noted.
“知识与信息不同。知识绝不是看几集电视剧就能获得的，也不可能通过读几本书或者听几期播客就能得到，”“第六声”记者陶立兴（音译）指出。
He believes that to get real knowledge, one has to ask questions, analyze and reflect, rather than rely simply on internet content.
他认为，要想获得真正的知识，人们需要提出问题、分析并反思问题，而不是仅仅依赖网上的内容。
In spite of this, it seems that paying for knowledge online is a popular phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing down.
尽管如此，在线知识付费似乎依然是个热门现象，没有放缓的迹象。
