3 ms·

I'm but one data point. I used to buy a lot of magazines, Popular Science, Byte, APC, MacWorld, Motoring, Unique Homes, Architectural Digest, etc. As the inter

I'm but one data point. I used to buy a lot of magazines, Popular Science, Byte, APC, MacWorld, Motoring, Unique Homes, Architectural Digest, etc. As the internet took hold, the prices of magazines continued to rise and so did the volume of ads. My magazine buying diminished as my news needs became better served by the internet. In the early days internet ads weren't too bothersome and I was pleased with how much money I saved by no longer buying magazines. At every house move, I ended up throwing thousands of dollars worth of magazines away. That hurt. I no longer buy technical books of any sort. As for other books, eBooks are cheaper and take up less bookshelf space. Notwithstanding, I still have well over 2000 quality books, and that's after culling out of date technical books.

PaulHoule 3y ago
Circa 1980 there were a lot of magazines like Byte and Creative Computing that tried to cover the whole world of "8-bit" computing. My impression was that they all started to struggle when the IBM PC came out in 1981 but it took a long time for the situation to develop because the PC was strong in some ways (640k seemed like a huge amount of memory at first, the CPU was fast because it wasn't having half of its cycles stolen by the video system) but weak in other ways (horrible for motion graphics because it wasn't having half of its cycles stolen by the video system.) There were some magazines like Atari Age and Compute Gazette and Rainbow that specialized in particular systems that became more important by the middle of the 1980s. If you look at Byte in 1987 you can see the industry in the middle of a transition to PC clones, which for me was sparked by the relatively cheap PC AT clones, I got one for about $1200. With a 12MHz 286 this machine was fast enough that I could develop software under emulation for the Z80 with CP/M and have it run faster than most real CP/M machines. EGA graphics was actually good enough for games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen 1987 was the year I traded in my Coco 3 and a huge amount of peripherals (I ran the OS-9 multitasking operating system and had two terminals attached) and many of my friends were doing the same. The generalist magazines were mostly dead, the specialist magazines were on the way out as their platforms died, Computer Shopper was the top magazine for a while not because of the articles but because it was chock full of ads for parts for building PC clones. Around that time I'd gotten a 2400 baud modem and I was dialing into BBS all the time and that was already a nail in the coffin for computer magazines because the early adopters were already reading about computers online. Byte, for instance, jumped in with both feet with an online service called Bix. I had quit reading computer magazines long before the WWW came out but soon it wasn't just the early adopters who had quit, it was everyone.
wrp 3y ago
I bought a variety of magazines in the 1980s (Modern Photography, Scientific American, etc.) and I felt you really got your money's worth in content. Before the end of the 1990s, magazines had become much thinner and content was lame and outweighed by ads. I don't think I bought any magazines after about 1998. Was the Internet wholly to blame for the change?
instagraham 3y ago
> I'm but one data point. I used to buy a lot of magazines, Popular Science, Byte, APC, MacWorld, Motoring, Unique Homes, Architectural Digest, To speculate a bit, notwithstanding your need for information, were you not also buying a lifestyle with those magazines? and the switch to online - does it make you feel as inherently a part of that lifestyle as you did when you had a magazine for it? It reminds me of a Calvin & Hobbes running gag, where Calvin subscribes to a magazine for chewing gum enthusiasts. It seemed farcical, and maybe that was the point, but in hindsight, it's nice to have community and some sense of niche knowledge.

PaulHoule 3y ago

Circa 1980 there were a lot of magazines like Byte and Creative Computing that tried to cover the whole world of "8-bit" computing. My impression was that they all started to struggle when the IBM PC came out in 1981 but it took a long time for the situation to develop because the PC was strong in some ways (640k seemed like a huge amount of memory at first, the CPU was fast because it wasn't having half of its cycles stolen by the video system) but weak in other ways (horrible for motion graphics because it wasn't having half of its cycles stolen by the video system.) There were some magazines like Atari Age and Compute Gazette and Rainbow that specialized in particular systems that became more important by the middle of the 1980s. If you look at Byte in 1987 you can see the industry in the middle of a transition to PC clones, which for me was sparked by the relatively cheap PC AT clones, I got one for about $1200. With a 12MHz 286 this machine was fast enough that I could develop software under emulation for the Z80 with CP/M and have it run faster than most real CP/M machines. EGA graphics was actually good enough for games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen 1987 was the year I traded in my Coco 3 and a huge amount of peripherals (I ran the OS-9 multitasking operating system and had two terminals attached) and many of my friends were doing the same. The generalist magazines were mostly dead, the specialist magazines were on the way out as their platforms died, Computer Shopper was the top magazine for a while not because of the articles but because it was chock full of ads for parts for building PC clones. Around that time I'd gotten a 2400 baud modem and I was dialing into BBS all the time and that was already a nail in the coffin for computer magazines because the early adopters were already reading about computers online. Byte, for instance, jumped in with both feet with an online service called Bix. I had quit reading computer magazines long before the WWW came out but soon it wasn't just the early adopters who had quit, it was everyone.

wrp 3y ago

I bought a variety of magazines in the 1980s (Modern Photography, Scientific American, etc.) and I felt you really got your money's worth in content. Before the end of the 1990s, magazines had become much thinner and content was lame and outweighed by ads. I don't think I bought any magazines after about 1998. Was the Internet wholly to blame for the change?

instagraham 3y ago

> I'm but one data point. I used to buy a lot of magazines, Popular Science, Byte, APC, MacWorld, Motoring, Unique Homes, Architectural Digest, To speculate a bit, notwithstanding your need for information, were you not also buying a lifestyle with those magazines? and the switch to online - does it make you feel as inherently a part of that lifestyle as you did when you had a magazine for it? It reminds me of a Calvin & Hobbes running gag, where Calvin subscribes to a magazine for chewing gum enthusiasts. It seemed farcical, and maybe that was the point, but in hindsight, it's nice to have community and some sense of niche knowledge.