Yes, paper catalogs had high information and education content e.g. the Whole Earth Catalog in the US or the IKEA catalog in Europe are cult items. There are a

Yes, paper catalogs had high information and education content e.g. the Whole Earth Catalog in the US or the IKEA catalog in Europe are cult items. There are also different national prior probabilities for reading magazines as a habit in different cultures: for example, both the UK and Germany had a strong computer magazine culture, whereas in the US there was less of it (Byte and Dr Dobb's Journal being notable exceptions). The German "c't - magazin für computer technik" is still Europe's largest computer magazine (https://www.heise.de/ct https://www.heise.de/ct). Europe also has comic magazines by Disney (featuring Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse. & co.), which never existed in the US, unlike the animation films.