The death of magazine subscription?

January 30th, 2009 by Rory Shiner Posted in Miscellaneous

I was happy to read in the Fin Review today that books will be with us for the foreseeable future.
Magazines and journals, however, may be another story. I was talking with some people from Unichurch the other day about this issue. We noted that almost every journal is now online.
I used to subscribe to 4 journals. A few months ago the last of those 4 to go online finally made it. Now I subscribe to none. Is that just what’s going to happen?
Is there a good reason to subscribe to journals and magazines anymore?

  1. 2 Responses to “The death of magazine subscription?”

  2. By Jon Rumble on Jan 31, 2009

    Nah, especially as the Amazon Kindle and related devices develop over the next few years… The advantage of being electronic – cheap, no paper, instaneous, can carry millions of pages in the palm of your hand; plus the advantage of a book – solid thing in your hand, not tied to a PC, special screen that isn’t backlit so it reads like paper and doesn’t give you eye strain…

    Now just need to wait for it in Oz! But it will be nice to have your Fin Review and the Australian arrive on your bedside table each morning right Rors? :)

  3. By David Entwistle on Jan 31, 2009

    I think there’s a distinction to be made between the death of the magazine (not going to happen) and the death of the magazine subscription (already cold in the grave).

    Magazines are finding huge new audiences online, and making money from banner ads (as they always did in print, too). I wouldn’t subscribe to any mag, because it’s much better to peruse fifteen different mags and read the good bits (and all for free!).

    There’s also the rise of the solely online mag, like Slate, Huff Post and Fora. These have some of the best content on the web.

    The only problem is that with every word of every mag coming down the cable, what do you read first?

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