End of an Era: the Last Two Print Computer Magazines Just Pressed Their Last Issues
upstart writes:
MacLife and Maximum PC April issues will be their last physical versions:
Magazines are so retro: If you are anything like me, you probably remember the days when you subscribed to multiple computing magazines. I still have fond memories of typing out the computer programs in the back pages of some publications; I even submitted a few of my own.
When high-speed internet came along, many computing publications began producing digital versions of their magazines online. Those with subscriptions still got their physical copies, but the online component was a nice perk for when readers could not just pick up a magazine and start reading, like at work.
Before long, most computing magazines had online versions and, at some point, started ditching paper. It was easier and cheaper to publish one copy that all subscribers could access online rather than printing hundreds of thousands of physical versions.
[...] The demise of print media in the computing industry was inevitable. By the 2000s, many prominent magazines had shut down their printing arms and switched to digital only. Byte stopped printing in 1998. Windows Magazine crashed in 2002, and the succinctly titled PC Magazine (now PCMag) published its last issue in 2009. Computer Gaming World went entirely out of business with its November 2006 issue.
[...] Print advertising also played a big part in the decline of computer publications. Once advertisers realized replicating ads on web pages was cheap and easy, they gradually pulled out of print computer magazines. Many physical magazine branches shut down for that reason alone. If the pub didn't have the clout of names like PC Magazine, Maximum PC, or PC World, it had no chance of competing against the internet for ad space. Even the almanac-like Computer Shopper plunged from nearly 360,000 readers in 1996 to about 55,000 in 2014.
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