The rebirth of magazines | Hacker News Reader

The rebirth of magazines

therebooting.substack.com

44 pointsherbertl27 comments

We did this for ADVrider.com. During COVID we were home and maybe too much time on our hands but we decided to do a one time print edition for our digital community.

We planned to print about 2,000 copies for our supporting members (paying) but figured hey if we’re going to do this maybe we can sell some copies.

Over 5,000 people paid for a copy, the demand for a niche like ours felt insane. Then we thought let’s put it in Barnes and noble. They said we’d sell 15% to 20% of the copies, it was 50%.

Now we do it 2x per year and it’s the easiest advertising we sell but we are still mainly subscriber driven. $49 per year it’s not inexpensive. But it’s super high quality.

A 20 year old forum .. goes print. Weird times.

It helps that you have a great, long-established community of nice people who share a passion for what, for most, is a reasonably expensive hobby. (No offense intended− I commute on my GS :) )

I often hold up ADVrider as an example of a place where the "old internet" still exists— my experience lurking there is identical to my experience lurking on forums in the early 2000s.

Sports-related message boards are another example of "old internet". These boards were usually set up in the 2000s and managed to survive the social media era due to the common culture shared by its users that kept them from moving to Twitter or FB groups. That led to a dilution of community on those larger social media groups, because with each viral post, they'd attract a huge number of new users who would change the culture, but dint of their size relative to the original tribe.

Paradoxically, this also kept the messageboard membership small, as users had to set up an account to post. It wasn't like FB, Twitter or Reddit where one account gives you a passport to post and comment nearly everywhere.

I've posted more about old message boards and culture on my personal website [0]:

[0] https://fuzzcrush.xyz/blog/dead-forums-extinct-communities-a...

100%. I think it's a community in the most real sense. We've got our fair share of trolls and occasional assholes but for the most part there's a lot of really great people there... many have met in the real world so maybe that makes us nicer to each other.

I am glad you posted here! I stumbled across the print edition at my local BN, thought it would make a great gift subscription for someone I know, went home to the website to order one, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to confirm that there was going to ever be a new issue (I think the one at BN was the 4th), or any related info that looked “current.” Actually, I couldn’t even find evidence that the 4th issue existed I don’t think! Haha But now that I know there will be more, I can order one.

We need to clean up the subscription pages, we're actively working on that rn.

I am very surprised to find a representative from ADVrider on HN. But have to comment that I really love the forum. As another reply to your post mentions, it is one of the very few forums that still exists and as far as I can tell thrives. I really enjoy visiting.

Isn't it a known fact that most adv riders are 30 year old engineers?

Haha you have a very good point! The adv bike market could have an over representation of software engineers. Wealthy enough to buy them and an interest in getting away from screens.

heh, there are actually a few of us but I won't out them :). HN and ADV are my two favorite communities online.

My town has a free magazine that is dedicated to only local town news, events people etc. It's primarily supported by advertisers.

They have a different family on the cover each month and people get SO excited if they get picked to be on the cover. Heck, I got profiled as "athlete of the month" b/c I started the town rock climbing club and it's still one of my favorite stories to tell about moving here.

> we could see a resurgence of magazine approaches in whatever comes next in digital media.

No, this is not happening. I don’t think it will happen because of people’s attention spans and the cost of printing and distribution.

It’s a wishful dream, but I think the time is past. I love magazines and have collected some old issues of Wired that got me into tech. But current magazines are really bad and vapid and cheap.

I don't think you're looking ahead far enough. It's true that people's attention spans have declined, but I can't imagine that is a permanent condition. Giving sustained attention to interesting things is an essential feature of human minds, and I'm certain we'll regain that ability over time. I see signs of it even now. And when you say, "…current magazines are really bad and vapid and cheap," you're describing the unsuccessful response by many publications to pressure from digital media: they cut quality. A resurgence of magazines will require that they recognize that error and correct it, publishing magazines that show depth of thought and quality writing and printing — all the things that are discouraged by the "quantity first" attitude of digital media. I think the time for a resurgence of print periodicals is coming soon.

>you're describing the unsuccessful response by many publications to pressure from digital media: they cut quality

I was talking about this with an older woman recently who was lamenting the planned demise of the Martha Stewart magazine. She was completely unsatisfied with the print alternatives, which she said were low-rent by comparison. I took a look at both and I'm inclined to agree; the Martha Stewart magazine had more elegant design and photography, etc.

We bought our Mom a print subscription to Food & Wine that she adored but they just notified her they’re going to digital only (not sure if it’s a permanent or temp shift)for the rest of her subscription so we won’t be renewing. Food & Wine’s print edition was solid content and enjoyable reading. Other magazines we’d gifted her in the past disappointed. They were thin & mostly ads so we’re bummed we’re losing the Food & Wine print option.

While it’s possible that it’s not a permanent condition, I gave up hope 10 years ago.

I love magazines and use to subscribe to dozens and spend time in bookstores reading through them. Every time I browse the magazine section I see nothing. So I don’t think there’s a single quality magazine I’m into.

I still subscribe to MagPi and think it’s great.

It depends- I have a subscription to Nat Geo History, Scientific American and Nature and I enjoy reading them cover to cover every month.

Magazines have never stopped “being a thing” in the fashion and art worlds, and in a lot of ways the recent “rebirth of magazines” is just the rest of culture catching up. See for example the numerous fashion magazine stores in Berlin or London, and magazines like Número, Fantastic Man, 032c, or I-D.

The business model of premium printed products seems to have worked well for some niches, and I think it may work well for others - as long as the audience is the kind that appreciates printed material that isn’t purely for acquiring information.

Fashion and art are a special case because to some extent the value of what is discussed will shift with the amount of attention given to it, since it has much to do with social signaling. The magazines boost or even determine the success or nature of what the sector becomes.

I’ve been subscribing to retro gamer magazine for ages as a guilty pleasure to read when I have some down time. I miss the massive selection of mags from the 90’s and early 2000’s

I am so glad that there has been an upsurge in nostalgia for physical things like magazines and records. During covid, I sold the following magazines:

134 Dragon (starting at issue 11)

37 Dungeon

A complete set of Mondo 2000

A complete set of The Duelist

(not to mention finally getting rid of that box of obscure 80s LPs that went for $50-250 each) Magic cards are next (but I keep putting it off because it seems like such a pain to sell them)

Hard to decide which was more valuable: the $$ or the purging of unnecessary crap. One man's trash and all that...

This is along the lines of an upswing in tape cassette sales. There might be a niche market but it wouldn't even sustain the needed infrastructure if it's not also being used for something else.

Although given the amount of junk I needed to sort through to find the article on that page I can see the appeal.

I love having a magazine to flip through at the beach or the pool. I don’t care if a magazine gets wet or sandy as much as I would a book and I like having a break from my phone.

I personally think that publications like Adventure Journal are where magazines are heading. They should be able to be a sustainable business, as long as the people running the show truly care about the subject and the medium, AND there is a large enough niche audience willing to pay for it. AJ seems to follow 3 rules:

1. Ultra high quality content 2. Severely limited advertising 3. Print content is never published online/digitally

Isn't Outbrain a chumbox company? I'm not sure how much I trust anything "sponsored" by them. Or is this like all those Youtube creators taking money from sketchy VPN companies, and I just need to look past it?

Yes, Outbrain and Taboola are both chumbox businesses. Not sure what their operating model is but it surely makes the internet an uglier place. I’ve block their content but whenever I see them on other people’s devices it makes me gag a bit. Yikes

Rebirth, really? This was a nice trip down memory lane, as I love magazines. I'm someone who would much rather have a copy of say, the Guardian's Panama Papers coverage in nice, graphical, glossy form, as opposed to a web link that will throw a newsletter signup form at me before I can even see the article.

But I have not heard on any of the ones mentioned at the end of the article. They sound like limited-time boutique publications, and those have been around forever. My local cannabis store has one such 'publication', and it's 90% ads.

Also, this bit is precisely why magazines died:

>Forbes has shown the lasting value of legacy brands with its lucrative accolades business and franchises like 30 Under 30 that trade on the brand’s legacy of “standing for success.” Time has similarly shown how a legacy brand can be reshaped by focusing on new opportunities like web3 while leaning on lucrative franchises like Person of the Year. Magazines still have heft.

"Forbes" is basically Huffington Post; anybody can contribute to the online version. The print version obviously is different, but also not taken seriously. "Published in Forbes" is the sort of resume line item held by your average Medium.com writer. The "30 under 30" is pay-to-play; it's the previous generation's version of becoming an influencer. Find one person on that list in the past 5 years that amounted to something.

No comment on TIME magazine, the writing there was at an 8th grade level even in the '90s.

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