The Last Print Edition of PC Magazine

[Update November 27, 2008. -- Linux Magazine has stopped producing a print version as well: http://www.linux-mag.com/magazine.]

The last print edition of PC Magazine will be the January 2009 edition : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2335009,00.asp . I am not surprised as we have seen the magazine get thiner over the years. I wonder if this is a taste of what is to come for other publications? It is more than just economic factors. Sure prices of magazines could be relative in price to what they were twenty years ago. But at $7.00 plus for almost any magazine today, that is hovering around the $100.00 mark per publication per year. That can be a day's pay for many of us.

Then there is the environmental issue. I use to work in an academic library in the shelving department. I use to put books and bound journals back on the shelf. Before most of the journals went online I use to lose about ten pounds every year between September to April. That is covering the time of year when most of us put a few pounds on due to Thanksgiving, Christmas and more inactivity. That is how much energy I consumed moving all that paper around.

Now take a look at any piece of paper on your desk. How did it get there? Start with somebody tavelling to the woods to cut down the tree that the paper is made of. Think of the entire route that the paper in a magazine takes to get to your mailbox or store. The amount of energy consumed moving paper is huge. And then, thousands of copies of magazines have to be transported to a recycling centre because they were not sold.

This is not economically or environmentally sustainable. I enjoy my copy of the Linux Journal when it comes to my house. But just as I no longer subscribe to a newspaper I realize that this luxury may not last. Soon, any print versions of a publication will have to be pre-paid. Or everything goes digital.