I'd really like to say that's a zinger, since I am mostly on Apple's side about all this. But the fact of course is that they're offering you X percent off the

I'd really like to say that's a zinger, since I am mostly on Apple's side about all this. But the fact of course is that they're offering you X percent off the cover price, not X percent off the actual subscription price. The other fact is that whatever discounted rate happens to be the REAL price of a subscription will end up being the rate that the publisher in question has to offer in-app in iOS as well. That said, I completely agree with you about the gloom and doom, because that normal subscription price includes the costs of actually printing a paper magazine and shipping it to the customer. I'm pretty sure that in the vast majority of cases, the costs for providing an online edition will be much less. So there's still a profit margin here, and a sizable one.