4 ms·

Fascinating topic, but it was as if i was reading a high school report on the subject.

bell-cot 3y ago
This, so sadly this. The SciAm I subscribed to in the 70's and 80's is long since dead and gone. Back then, articles were routinely dense, tough long reads, with excellent editing and fact-checking. Now...it's filler fluff, and I'd trust Wikipedia more for facts.
- acegopher 3y ago
  Unfortunately, no one buys subscriptions any more, and advertisers have moved to Facebook and Google. The ad-based internet has conditioned people to expect free content, and the internet ad model incentivizes click-bait low quality content because it's easy to publish and provides a place to hang ads from.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Yeah...though SciAm seemed to be in a long, slow decline for a decade+ before "free with ads on the web" was really a thing. And (that I've found) there is nothing comparable (to the old SciAm) that is free on the web. Did the demographic that was willing to think hard & long enough to enjoy the old SciAm gradually die off? Or did they just replace eating paid-for healthy brain food with eating free junk food. (FWIW - I pretty much dropped all the "premium" subscriptions I once had - all dead-tree editions - between ~2000 and ~2010, as either their quality went to crap, or they ceased publication.)
    - snakeboy 3y ago
      I don't think it's died off, rather it's found in more independent blogs/newsletters at this point. On one hand, the information is generally free and more accessible to a wider global audience, but maybe that exposure is biased towards scientists that are themselves strong writers. Whereas in a world where high-quality science writers are funded, the researcher doesn't have to master this skill to have their work effectively popularized.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      > Did the demographic that was willing to think hard & long enough to enjoy the old SciAm gradually die off? That demographic were always a minority of the general population and I think they still exist. Maybe at one point Scientific American had some pride and catered to this niche because they thought it was socially constructive or something, but clearly they're now gearing towards a more... mass audience.. to get more money of course. I don't know how else you'd explain an image of the wrong ocean. If they couldn't get the right image, why include an image at all? Of course pictures are appealing for mass audiences, a substantial fraction of whom are barely literate and need pretty pictures (even if irrelevant) to encourage them along.
    - pomian 3y ago
      I think that demographic is now here. I'm mean on HN. (If they find it.)
    - yummypaint 3y ago
      For me it was when they formally killed off the amateur scientist column. It had itself been in decline for a decade or more before that, but some of their old articles were really excelent. The replacement these days seems to be educational youtubers.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Happening all over. National Geographic just laid off their last staff writers yesterday. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/06/28/national-geographic-staff-writers-laid-off/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/06/28/national-geo...
  - dr_dshiv 3y ago
    That’s super sad. I have a lifetime subscription to the magazine my grandfather got for me when I was seven.
- basch 3y ago
  BBC Science Focus isn’t bad.
- akiselev 3y ago
  The degradation goes back much further than the 1970s, I’m afraid. I’ve got Scientific American volumes from the 1860s and they were incredible back then. Letters that formed conversations discussing wild theories about comets that lasted for months, sometimes years. Some guy wrote in about his discovery of heat treating asphalt to make it more reliable. Another wrote in about how machine guns were useless in his experience in the Civil War and how the Europeans were about to repeat the same mistake in whatever war was just starting. Lots of ads for with saw blade drawings for Emerson's patent movable teeth made by the American Saw Company. The prints were gorgeous [1] and the ads, despite covering a significant portion of each issue, were mostly text. Fascinating from a historical perspective but easy to ignore when reading for the rest of the material. [1] https://imgur.com/a/vF00pdX https://imgur.com/a/vF00pdX
- yummypaint 3y ago
  This kind of content still exists in print, it just isn't mass marketed. Physics today for instance is excellent and written for practicing physicists at an advanced undergrad level. It's also online: https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday
dylan604 3y ago
Hey, they were the winner of the 2018 Best Blog Post, so the depth of what that says is as deep as the TFA subject itself

This, so sadly this. The SciAm I subscribed to in the 70's and 80's is long since dead and gone. Back then, articles were routinely dense, tough long reads, with excellent editing and fact-checking. Now...it's filler fluff, and I'd trust Wikipedia more for facts.

acegopher 3y ago
Unfortunately, no one buys subscriptions any more, and advertisers have moved to Facebook and Google. The ad-based internet has conditioned people to expect free content, and the internet ad model incentivizes click-bait low quality content because it's easy to publish and provides a place to hang ads from.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Yeah...though SciAm seemed to be in a long, slow decline for a decade+ before "free with ads on the web" was really a thing. And (that I've found) there is nothing comparable (to the old SciAm) that is free on the web. Did the demographic that was willing to think hard & long enough to enjoy the old SciAm gradually die off? Or did they just replace eating paid-for healthy brain food with eating free junk food. (FWIW - I pretty much dropped all the "premium" subscriptions I once had - all dead-tree editions - between ~2000 and ~2010, as either their quality went to crap, or they ceased publication.)
  - snakeboy 3y ago
    I don't think it's died off, rather it's found in more independent blogs/newsletters at this point. On one hand, the information is generally free and more accessible to a wider global audience, but maybe that exposure is biased towards scientists that are themselves strong writers. Whereas in a world where high-quality science writers are funded, the researcher doesn't have to master this skill to have their work effectively popularized.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > Did the demographic that was willing to think hard & long enough to enjoy the old SciAm gradually die off? That demographic were always a minority of the general population and I think they still exist. Maybe at one point Scientific American had some pride and catered to this niche because they thought it was socially constructive or something, but clearly they're now gearing towards a more... mass audience.. to get more money of course. I don't know how else you'd explain an image of the wrong ocean. If they couldn't get the right image, why include an image at all? Of course pictures are appealing for mass audiences, a substantial fraction of whom are barely literate and need pretty pictures (even if irrelevant) to encourage them along.
  - pomian 3y ago
    I think that demographic is now here. I'm mean on HN. (If they find it.)
  - yummypaint 3y ago
    For me it was when they formally killed off the amateur scientist column. It had itself been in decline for a decade or more before that, but some of their old articles were really excelent. The replacement these days seems to be educational youtubers.
ceejayoz 3y ago
Happening all over. National Geographic just laid off their last staff writers yesterday. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/06/28/national-geographic-staff-writers-laid-off/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/06/28/national-geo...
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  That’s super sad. I have a lifetime subscription to the magazine my grandfather got for me when I was seven.
basch 3y ago
BBC Science Focus isn’t bad.
akiselev 3y ago
The degradation goes back much further than the 1970s, I’m afraid. I’ve got Scientific American volumes from the 1860s and they were incredible back then. Letters that formed conversations discussing wild theories about comets that lasted for months, sometimes years. Some guy wrote in about his discovery of heat treating asphalt to make it more reliable. Another wrote in about how machine guns were useless in his experience in the Civil War and how the Europeans were about to repeat the same mistake in whatever war was just starting. Lots of ads for with saw blade drawings for Emerson's patent movable teeth made by the American Saw Company. The prints were gorgeous [1] and the ads, despite covering a significant portion of each issue, were mostly text. Fascinating from a historical perspective but easy to ignore when reading for the rest of the material. [1] https://imgur.com/a/vF00pdX https://imgur.com/a/vF00pdX
yummypaint 3y ago
This kind of content still exists in print, it just isn't mass marketed. Physics today for instance is excellent and written for practicing physicists at an advanced undergrad level. It's also online: https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday

dylan604 3y ago

Hey, they were the winner of the 2018 Best Blog Post, so the depth of what that says is as deep as the TFA subject itself