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From: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Getting Byte'n and more BIX'en for us AMIGAns
Message-ID: <3367@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Nov-87 09:49:12 EST
Article-I.D.: xanth.3367
Posted: Sat Nov 14 09:49:12 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 19:38:34 EST
References: <2241@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1799@charon.unm.edu>
Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 45

In article <1799@charon.unm.edu> hansb@ariel.UUCP (Hans Bechtel) writes:
>Whatever happened to the BYTE coverage of Amiga BIX articles?
>I haven't seen it for 3 months!
>Ouch!!! 

[What a spectacular chance to flame BYTE!  Can't resist.]

The direct excuse was that they had to trim the size of the non-ad parts of the
magazine, due to loss of ad revenues.

(Hyperglogic napalm squirt gun mode on)

In case no one has pointed it out to you, Byte has become almost
exclusively the domain of PC/clone articles.  The example software is
mostly MS-DOS examples, the articles are all about neat tricks for
your clone, even the benchmarks are heavily baised toward Intel goods,
the latest rumor goes.

Worst of all, they ran a reader survey, and found lots of PC/clone
owners in their audience, and so have become even more editorially
biased toward the PC/cloniverse, presuming, I guess, that is what
their readers want to see.

Most spectacular is a thirteenth issue each year, devoted to kissing
IBM's feet.  Total waste of my subscription dollar, the issue goes
right in the trash.

Now if you were one of the advertisers of Amiga products, or Radio
Shack products, or whatever, wouldn't you take the hint you really
aren't appreciated, and start looking elsewhere for a place for your
ads?  Apparently lots of folks have.

So, to worsen this feedback loop, they cut out more non-IBM material.

It is going to be really tough justifying renewing my Byte
subscription when the time comes.  I've been with them for six years,
and over that time they have gone from concentrating on the leading
edge of home computing to concentrating on the market numbers.  This
is really a shame, because no one's come along to take their place,
that I can see.  A similar sad fate overtook Dr. Dobbs, which cleaned
up its act to the point that it's no fun to read any more.

(Last little dribble squirted out, flame dies.)

Kent, the man from xanth.