Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!udel!burdvax!dvnspc1!gary
From: gary@dvnspc1.Dev.Unisys.COM (Gary Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PC Tech Journal Dies
Message-ID: <377@dvnspc1.Dev.Unisys.COM>
Date: 28 Feb 89 16:51:51 GMT
References: <1826@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Unisys Corporation, Devon, PA
Lines: 55

In article <1826@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>, jal@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu writes:
> 
> I was asked by the PC Tech Journal to write an article for the
> upcoming May or June issue.  I just found out that the April 
> issue will be their last.
> 
> Just thought some folks would like to know about the demise of
> this publication.
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> 
> I program ... therefore I am.
> 
> John Lefor    	University of Rochester		Dept of E. Engineering
> 716-275-8265	jal@ee.rochester.edu		uunet!ur-valhalla!jal



I am also one of the many folks to be burned if the publishers of PC
Tech Journal don't return the unused $$$ of my subscription.  

Seems I've been burned a lot by magazines of late, so much so that
recent hassles cause me to be careful about long-term renewals.  

Take PC Tech Journal.  Six months before my 1-year subscription had 
run out, I got my renewal request!!  And they kept coming, as
if the world would end unless I got my money in RIGHT AWAY.
When they offered a free utilities diskette if I renewed, I finally
gave in.  But I never got the diskette till I complained.  And I
continued to get those ever-arriving requests for renewal, until I
started to return the darn things in their postage paid envelopes!  (Could it
be that according to market research, some people loose track of
subscriptions and may sometimes mistakenly pay twice if they are falsely 
badgered?)

But I don't blame PC Tech Journal alone.  All the tech mags seem to be
requesting renewal way ahead of time.  And of course they want you to
renew for as many years ($$) as they can get.  If you are a business
living on the edge, as mags seem to be as they come and go on the
newstand, you get all the money you can up front!

By the way, anyone out there subscribe to Micro/Systems and then after two
issues suddenly receive LAN Technologies?  Wonderful, except I wanted
to know about PCs, not about LANs.  Of course, I guess that beats
Mobile-Home America or Popular Bass Fishing.

When I ponder all these shenanigans, I must wonder how much of this is
honest blundering due to the sheer bureaucracy of publication
distribution and how much is snake-oil: get that money and the customer
be damned.

Certainly, if I were to go to a store and order a book and the
bookstore gave me another one on another subject or only gave me one
book of a five book set, that bookstore would be liable for breach of
contract or some such consumer protection.  So why not magazine publishers?