I read
PC Magazine for about 25 years, but let my subscription lapse several years ago -- I have them going back to
Issue #2!
They were one of the best sources for learning
anything and everything about PC hardware and programming. Much better than the competing PC World. In my opinion, when the ads from companies like Borland (programming languages) and Dbase (applications) and Novell (networking) started disappearing, the long slide downhill had begun. Later years only featured ads from competing PC suppliers, selling nearly identical machines for nearly identical prices. [I didn't read for the ads, but they were like "the canary in the coal mine" for me...
PCs as tools to be modified to your needs morphing into
PCs as commodities for Email and Web-surfing.]
I thought the addition of Jim Louderback several years back might spur a renaissance, but when he left for ExtremeTech, that hope faded. Now, with their coverage of Cameras, Cars, Web-Enabled-Refrigerators, anything-with-a-chip, etc., the magazine has become virtually irrelevant to PCers.
The eventual demise of PCMag could probably be forseen as well if one was a reader of other fine Ziff-Davis publications, like the now defunct
XBN (Xbox Nation) and
Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. They let Future UK push them off the playing field. The only thing left is
EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), and they've certainly had their share of controversies and shake-ups lately. Maybe they still have one of the PC Gamer mags, I'm not sure. The Ziff-Davis cable channel
ZDtv was fantastic (for us geeks), rose to glory as TechTV (I still miss Leo LaPorte), then died overnight in the merger with G4 (the "Spike, Jr." channel).
One of my good friends from school days is a Corp. VP at Ziff-Davis, and I've asked him about this stuff several times over the years. All he can do is shrug it off, saying it's not up to him. I guess that soon, all Ziff-Davis will be selling will be electrons and photons...
It's a shame, but I don't miss it now. I started missing PC Mag years ago...
Mike