"But to be successful online, a magazine can't just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm. There isn't enough depth or interactivity in

"But to be successful online, a magazine can't just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm. There isn't enough depth or interactivity in print content to overcome the drawbacks of the online medium. If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines." Bill clearly didn't consider that the 'drawbacks of the online medium' would be eliminated by everyone having a computer in their pocket. I pay for online-only subscriptions to The Economist and The New York Times, and these apps are essentially just electronic copies of their paper cousins. Bill also seems to have missed the possibility of not producing content but instead acting as a platform for others to produce content. The network effects of such platforms have led to wildly profitable enterprises such as YouTube, Facebook and Spotify. Given Microsoft's own network effects, it's strange that Bill didn't consider this angle.