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Comment by nopassrecover | Hacker News Reader

It's funny - when they are printing a magazine I'm like wow great because I feel they've added value but when they're charging for the digital PDF (and it's a nothing charge let's face it) I feel like they are almost exploiting other's creativity (who I assume has been donated with permission?).

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I'm a bit torn about that, but I don't feel exploited. Permission was asked and granted, and authors now know the deal. Design is hard. Curation and editing are hard work. I bought 5 copies of #1 for my mother but haven't bought other issues.

I think the price of the paper form is too high, but the production values and low run means he's barely clearing a profit on them. It all comes from ads. That's his call, and, frankly, we are a pretty rich demographic. If Cheng Soon can cross HM over from vanity press to a serious hacker journal, this will become a very important magazine on the order of "Old Wired" and "Old DDJ".

Not Old DDJ, the 'text:code' relationship is still very much in favor of text with relatively little code, and the code is definitely not of the kind that used to be features in (old) DDJ.

I agree, but those $3 broke my heart. I am cash strapped down to $.50 and this magazine was amongst the things I look forward to and in fact I used to make people read it despite their too obvious protests. The sad part is that now it can't work that way. I cannot refer them on due to their paywall (yes I know it's online, but the PDF was really pretty and I loved passing it around in a package to my friend) and that's just sad.

Moreover, it was neat convenient and made me loyal to them I can't find a better branding exercise than that.

Sigh. I really wish that it didn't have to be this way, but perhaps they could try an alternate model of revenue (after all they're hackers). I would love to help these guys out in this regard.

Just bought you a copy and emailed it to you. Enjoy!

I don't know what to say right now.

I'm just touched.

Why can’t you refer them due to a “paywall”? I have no problem recommending music, books and movies, all of which you have to pay for. Why is that suddenly no more ok as soon as it is online?

>PDF was really pretty and I loved passing it around in a package

GP was emailing them to their friends. That's quality referral.

I don’t understand that objection at all. Getting some company to print something is not really an accomplishment. It’s nice that it’s possible but that’s about it.

Selecting the articles and designing the magazine is what adds the value. That is hard work, especially if you want to create something as nice looking as this. You get those two things with the PDF.

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