Not entirely. A lot of lifestyle magazine articles are essentially targeted ads for vetted products (see wedding or parenting magazines)—something that’s understood on both sides of the communication. It lends to serve the purpose of saving time for the reader in finding what they’re looking for to serve a specific need.

The unwanted side effect of that is probably the little greedy voice inside people that causes them to buy even more things they don’t need because all of the dressing up made it sound appealing.

Back when I was a kid I used to spend at least as long reading the ads in the computer magazines as I did the articles.

The same went for the gaming magazines (White Dwarf particularly). Even the ads that were just price lists were fascinating, just to see what was available to go and check out on the next trip to a games store.

A few weeks ago I noticed someone on the same train reading what seemed like a fashion magazine. As far as I could tell every single page was just a high fashion ad for some luxury good. Just photography, a brand trademark and maybe some captions indicating the edition or product range. It wasn't a catalogue. There were no serial numbers or prices. Just glossy ads as "content" interrupted by regular ads.

Trust me, there's a market for people who want ads.

Kinda depends on the magazine. Fashion mags it’s hard for me to even tell which is which.

The content is essentially an ad.