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People complain about ads , but browse any volume and count the number of ads (may be easier to count the number of non-ads). And you had to pay for that stuff.

• hanche 5y ago
  But those ads are static. They have no animated gifs or videos, having to rely on typography and still images to catch your attention. As a result, they are much less intrusive. More importantly, they couldn’t track you, nor did their selection rely on any knowlege of you (besides the fact that you were reading byte magazine.)
  • amelius 5y ago
    I agree with you, except some of the ads were loose inserts that fell out when you shook the magazine, which was almost as annoying as animated gifs/videos.
  • datavirtue 5y ago
    People like ads in magazines because they are relevant and informative of the progress of the industry. I learn nearly as much from ads reading "Fine Home Building" as I do reading the excellent technical articles.
• ddingus 5y ago
  Remember, paying for that stuff had value in those times. People would buy directories and or pay for advice / direction from others in the know too. Was hard to understand all that was going on out there. The ADS made more sense in that way than they do now. Sometimes, when a specific product was needed, those ADS connected people up in a way everyone found to have value. One thing, perhaps missed today given content marketing, was following the ADS to see who did what. New products, old ones phasing out, where things were, who, and sometimes pretty good reasons why all were found in those ADS. Scanning them was not all fluff. (not always fluff I should say, because yeah. There was fluff)
• timthorn 5y ago
  The ads were really valuable. Back in the day they were one of the main ways of learning what was available.