Why Are Electronic Magazines More Expensive Than Print?

January 3, 2014 1:19 PM

The only gift I wanted for the holiday's was an online subscription to Outside Magazine. The subscription was $23.99 on Apple newsstand.. The problem is Outside offers print subscription with 2 digital accounts for $16.99. I don't want the print copies. Is there anyway around the apple magazine monopoly? Not interested in nextissue.com
posted by Xurando to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

Apple takes a 30% cut of Newsstand sales, so Outside magazine marks up their price by about 30%.
posted by Oktober at 1:26 PM on January 3, 2014

My library system (Milwaukee Public Library) offers digital magazines through Zinio. They are the full magazines, with no expiration dates. It seems many libraries are using this same service, so you should check yours. Outside Magazine is a title available through my library, but may not be for yours. The downside is that new issues are not delivered automatically: you must go to your library's site and click the "checkout" button for each month's issue.
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 1:37 PM on January 3, 2014 [5 favorites]

In addition to Apple Store markup, advertisers pay far more for print exposures than they do for online, especially when it comes to upscale audiences like those for Outside, and you need to charge more for content delivered electronically to get the same income.

Savvy publishers will actually pay you to take the paper edition. (For example, a New York Times online-only subscription is usually more expensive than a Sunday-only print edition subscription which comes with full online privileges.).
posted by MattD at 1:59 PM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

A digital subscription to Outside is also $24 for the Nook and the Kindle so I don't think it's just an Apple monopoly.
posted by girlmightlive at 2:06 PM on January 3, 2014

Thanks JJtheJetPlane! Never thought to check my library website for magazines.
posted by jeffch at 2:26 PM on January 3, 2014

Just to confirm, that title is available for free through the Zinio service at my library.
posted by 99percentfake at 3:19 PM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]