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The Future of Magazines: Print Them Yourself?

Posted by in Economy, Internet, News & Media, Newspapers, Technology


The print industry has it rough.

The economy is forcing some people to cut subscriptions to save money. Production and transportation costs — not to mention postage — has been rising.

The cost of doing business increases, while revenue and profit margin decreases. It doesn’t take a business scholar to see the problem with this picture.

I don’t think that a new option designed to ease this problem will actually catch on, though. In fact, it strikes me as one of the silliest notions I’ve seen in a long time.

The great plan? Printing the magazines yourself at home.

No, I am not making this up.

Hewlett-Packard and Condé Nast announced last week a partnership to explore a new digital delivery system for magazines that would allow users to print the magazines they subscribe to on their own printers.

As part of the monthly subscription cost — estimated to be somewhere between $5.99 to $10.99 a month — HP Instant Ink would automatically deliver replacement ink to its customers while offering what HP describes as “potential cost savings.”

I suppose that depends, largely, on the magazines to which you subscribe.

If you multiply $10.99 times 12, a year of the service would run $131.88.

How many magazines are you paying $132 a year to receive?

I can go to Amazon.com and subscribe to Time magazine for a year for just $30. I can get a year of National Geographic, arguably the only magazine worth being printed in a nice, glossy presentation for the incredible images it contains, for just $15.

My favorite magazine, Mental Floss, which only produces six issues a year, runs $21.97.

And the only magazine I am receiving at the moment, thanks to a gift from a friend of mine, Macworld, runs $19.97 for a year on the site.

That means that I could subscribe to all four and receive them the old fashioned way with them doing the printing and still save money.

I like the idea of saving postage and printing costs. I really like the idea of saving paper, but this idea doesn’t necessarily do that, since you’re still printing.

I prefer the idea of a paywall on a website where you get all of the content of the printed version for a lower price. That way, I’m saving paper and money at the same time. And if I can download it to my iPad, I’ve got the portability, too.

Plus, there’s no clutter lying around my living room.

But this alternative just seems to miss the point. At least, it does for me.

How about you? Do you see the value in being able to print magazines on your own printer for a fee? Would you prefer to read magazines solely online, even if you had to pay a subscription fee? Or is the status quo, with glossy magazines mailed to your door the way you want things to remain?