A key reason people do that is the cost of buying them. If the advertising model still worked, and could support mass distribution of cheap subscriptions as it did 40+ years ago, people would still subscribe.

Unfortunately, advertising has moved to the Internet. So have any remaining "magazines" with savvy managers.

The unfortunate thing about paper and ink is that it costs a lot to print, package, ship, or mail the finished goods. Internet distribution of the same information is instant, and distribution to any number of subscribers is comparatively inexpensive.

Unfortunately for a LOT of editorial organizations, it took too long for their neanderthal publishers to realize that the paradigm had shifted their golden goose to an entirely different model. The "frogs were cooked before they realized the pot was on to boil."

It's probably time, once again, to reflect on just how much change electronic media have wrought in the past 30 years. Smart entrepreneurs were conceiving the elements of these changes as far back as the mid-1960s. But as usual, few companies saw what sorts of changes were in store for them until a new round of competitors was eating their lunch and kicking their desk chairs out from under them.

I need only look around my house to see the evidence... A turntable I seldom play, an AM/FM radio from 1980 that I play in my copy stand room, a cassette deck in the basement, a CD changer and a DVD player in the attic... and a shelf of old magazines in the closet.

"Why do you keep these?" My wife keeps asking about the magazines. I've run out of excuses. They're all archived online! Every last one of them is out there.

YES, vinyl is still alive, broadcasters are still broadcasting, CDs are still better than MP3s for in-home, in-car high fidelity, but DVDs are a terrible way to watch movies, and cassettes still hiss and jam. I considered buying a Blu-Ray recorder, but why? Everything is online now. And why do I want to buy a movie I'll watch once or maybe twice? Most of the used media stores we used to visit to trade old records, video games, and books have gone out of business.

So curse me for not being a luddite, and for embracing the online world as a preference. My smartphone and laptop are my media creation and consumption tools of choice. Screens are a lot more efficient than any hard media, and I can take them with me.

In 1974, my classmates and I often took our books outside and sat under giant oaks on the Davidson campus to study. But in 2024, my twins say, "why study a book under a tree, when the laptop gives you a whole world-wide library, and lets you type your notes into a database and then copy them into a term paper, complete with reference footnotes? When done, you just email it to your professor via the hotspot on your phone. Then you can play a game, watch a movie or a concert, or listen to some Internet radio." They hate paper.

I'm so thankful I grew up with an interest in, and a knack for adopting, new technology. It's been a liberating force in my life.

Early in this post, I said, "In the US, photography magazines are a dying breed. Do you have a library card? If so, you can set up your phone or tablet or PC with the "Libby" app, and you can have free access to numerous photography mags, mostly from the UK and Australia."

I thought the concept might be more concrete if I listed the photo mags I have free access to via Libby:
- Aperture
- Photo Review
- Outdoor Photography
- Digital Camera User
- Artdocs
- Photography Masterclass
- Photography Week
- Amateur Photographer
- Digital Camera World
- Digital Photographer
- Smart Photography
- Australian Photography
- Photoshop User
- Lens
- PhotoPlus

Early in this post, I said, "In the US, photography magazines are a dying breed. Do you have a library card? If so, you can set up your phone or tablet or PC with the "Libby" app, and you can have free access to numerous photography mags, mostly from the UK and Australia."

I thought the concept might be more concrete if I listed the photo mags I have free access to via Libby:
- Aperture
- Photo Review
- Outdoor Photography
- Digital Camera User
- Artdocs
- Photography Masterclass
- Photography Week
- Amateur Photographer
- Digital Camera World
- Digital Photographer
- Smart Photography
- Australian Photography
- Photoshop User
- Lens
- PhotoPlus