I noticed something on a London newsstand today that seems potentially significant: the number of magazines devoted to Linux now rivals the number devoted to Windows. For the first time I counted four of the following on sale.
- Linux Format
- Linux Magazine, & Linux Mag
- Linux User (now Linux User & Developer)
- Linux Journal
I scanned the Linux mags as I usually do to see if any were worth buying. As usual I didn’t bother. They’re horribly expensive and any technical content is available online, but they do feature interesting interviews, news stories and introductions to topics that look interesting. Then I realized: discounting games magazines which are a genre unto themselves, the Windows magazines on display were outnumbered, and some of my previously automatic purchases are also no longer automatic.
Conceivably some Windows titles, only 1 or 2 of which I ever buy (PC Pro and PCW) were missing because they’d sold out, but I would not be surprised if some were sliding into irrelevance with too much coverage of cameras and non-PC stuff
Are PC/Windows magazines really in decline?
As it happens, my subscription to the electronic edition of PC Magazine expires with the latest issue and I will not renew it. It’s not even worth a token subscription any more after years of decline (the print edition will cease entirely in October).
I would gladly substitute a decent Linux electronic magazine for it –the $10 a year or so I paid for the electronic edition of PC Mag is less than the cost of a single paper issue of any of the Linux magazines above.
This disconnect is hard to fathom: crazy prices for information on free software.
I visited Foyle’s Bookshop this afternoon, glad to see it still thriving after the closure of both Waterstone’s and Borders in nearby Oxford Street, but found it easy to resist the absurd prices for computer books.
No doubt people are working on Windows 7 books right now, rushing to get them into print for October 22nd when Windows 7 goes on sale. But Microsoft is doing some price gouging in Europe and the UK, even in a recession, with prices about double those in the US. The stink about ripoff pricing has begun.
I’m not sure what’s driving the Linux magazine sales. Since many people must buy only an occasional issue as I do, they must under-represent the interest in linux.
Later: Now I find out. PCW is dead! Sigh. I’ve read it on and off since the first issue. Here’s an obituary.
However, reading about this I find
The awareness of the importance of low-cost, personal computers in the UK was miles ahead of anything, anywhere else in the world. And the awareness was fuelled by PCW, and stoked by PCW, and the audience of PCW created the arena where these things were discussed.
British entrepreneurs and innovators have a long history of and genius for doing things on the cheap, because they had no alternative–lacking the access to venture capital taken for granted in America. Some of the consequences struck me at times as perverse, including the whole BBC Micro episode.
However, the law of unintended consequences always wins. The BBC Micro begat ARM, whose chips run in most of the world’s phones, including my iPhone.
I think Microsoft’s pricing strategy is cocking a SNOOK at the law of unintended consequences.
Some commentators have been quick to suggest that Microsoft is keen to stick the European consumer with the full cost of the fine imposed on it for anti-competitive practices by the European Commission. Others have pooh-poohed the whole idea, as if Mr.Ballmer had never thrown a chair in his life.
No doubt about it, Microsoft’s in for a squeeze.
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