What it does summarized in a sentence: allows processing of thousands of passive materialS in parallel to convert them effectively to active recall item.
It’s a pretty bold claim but it’s not so fancy and complicated as it seems.
First half of the power of incremental reading is systems for processing materially efficiently (more things in less time). If I import an article into SuperMemo, SuperMemo has good tools for breaking it down (incrementally) and processing it manageably. While there’s a bit of a learning curve to being efficient, given an hour with a textbook chapter I could convert and retain the core content better than a note taker or an anki card maker. One of the things I like the most about it is that it makes processing manageable. It doesn’t make it easy but I never have to worry about needing to do too much at once. It’s all incremental and stress less (after you get over the figure out how to use it phrase).
The second thing it does well is allow you to learn effectively (the right things with your time). It has a priority system and a queueing algorithm that allows you to focus on highest yield material. It also has a system for allowing you to learn things in an order. That might seem trivial but if I’m reading a Wikipedia page and want to go back when I’ve learned something else, that’s a huge pain to manage traditionally. SuperMemo makes that fairly easy so you’re always able to make sure to learn background info as scaffolding before harder things.
I highly recommend people try it even though starting with it is pretty hard. If you’re interested you can either email me (email is in my profile) or join the SuperMemo discord servers also linked there.
[1] https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/help/read