Linux Journal Goes — Surprise! — Digital 184
Mr_Perl writes "Linux Journal sent out an email to subscribers today announcing that they are going 100% digital. Subscribers signed on for a paper version of the journal, and now have been switched to an electronic version, apparently at the exact same subscription rate. No news yet on why they did it, and no sign of any offers to reimburse unused subscriptions for subscribers who are disappointed."
I don't like digital-only periodical subs (Score:5, Insightful)
If you let a paper subscription lapse, you don't have to return the books that you paid for under the subscription. It might be hard to find articles or search them, but you can keep a copy for as long as your copy survives! With reasonable treatment and storage conditions, that's upwards of 50 years.
If you have a digital version... they have the ability to pull the old issues at any time; e.g. 10 years from now they might decide to "archive old articles", so you can no longer find them. Also if you let your subscription lapse, when your web account is disabled, you lose access to ALL issues, even ones put out last month when you had a subscription to the periodical.
Also, if they go out of business and their website goes away, you lose access to all the articles you got under the subscription, and will have to pay more if you ever want to see them again, probably exorbitant fees to a database service or other archival service.
Loss of articles may hurt you if you remember/kept a tab of it, and want to use the info. either to help you, to show someone else, or for research/paper writing purposes
Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
And just on principal. The same price?
It is free to make and distribute, how can the digital version be the same price?