Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are forums and magazines dying?

I hope they are not dying. I have tried to sit and read magazine article on-line and just can't do it. I much prefer the magazine in paper form.

Definitely prefer printed paper.

1. It stays the same. Open book, read, easy-peasy. While e-book formats should be supported forever, look how music has changed - wax cylinders, vinyl platters, 8-track tapes, cassettes, CD's and now MP3 format. I know large corporations would never force their customers to upgrade their equipment, noooo.

2. The Apocalypse. Paper will last, you will have books to read and learn how to rebuild civilization long after batteries have died and wi-fi reception has faded out. And if worse comes to worst, you will always have something not only to read in the outhouse but to wipe yourself with when the reading is done. Which is why most of my books are commercial style paperbacks, no slick glossy pages for me...

The internet has allot more places for people to spend their time now than it used to.

Facebook has local hunting groups for certain areas where you can get localised responses. Allot of forum posters have left for other types of social media

-Jake

I really like having digital subscriptions to Rifle, Handloader, SH, RifleShooter, Shooting Times, and Guns&Ammo
Much cheaper than paying int’l postage and Canajun Sales tax.

In the past , I/ we were cautioned by military security briefers about the risks of FaceBook etc.
I haven’t seen anything to change my mind by way of improvement.

The ingress continues to escalate.

Handloader ,Rifle a few others off the rack occaisionally. Never been on Facebook or Twitter in my life and don't see it happening f'em . Mag Bob

I only get "Handloader", "Rifle", and "Sports Afield" are all I get anymore and some of the articles in them are not very interesting. Muledeer's stuff is always good but a couple of other writers don't seem to be putting as much effort into their work as they used to.

Oh yeah. Once that stuff starts I just move on. If I want to watch poo-flinging, I'll go to the zoo.

I think a lot of it goes back to the anonymity of the Internet. Stupid or nasty stuff can be said with little fear of reprisal. Someone coined the term "Internet tough guy" many years ago. There are several of these types here, and other boards as well.

There's a lot to this. Some folks have never had a proper educational beat down and it shows.

There's also the speed with which the internet lets us exchange information. If I have a question, I can post it here and within days or hours have a conversation with several knowledgable people who understand my problem, have dealt with several variations of it themselves, and are willing to share their original research (unpolluted by marketing language) on potential solutions.

In the old days, you had to snail mail a question to the editor and hope that they chose to print an answer your question several months later. Best case was that you could get the home address of a writer, write them a letter, and get a more detailed response in a month or so.


Okie John

While I much prefer paper to electronic, there are advantages to E-books such as not needing physical storage and to some extent cost. I like SciFi for recreational reading and even at an average of $3.50 a paperback for a used book my Kindle has averaged about $1.60 a book over the last two years which is a savings and 182 books I don't have to store.

Yeah, e-books are great for stuff where the copyright has expired. Not so much for new books.

The town crier just isn’t as popular as he used to be

I know that I am not alone when I say that I prefer paper books in certain circumstances. Probably the best place to enjoy new, used or ancient paper magazines is at a hunt camp. All you need to read a magazine is enough light to make out the letters. A lantern or flashlight works after the sun goes down. You don't need a laptop or a tablet, batteries, or some sort of satellite down-link to capture the Internets.

How carefree and relaxing is it to sit on a latrine, perusing a copy of Field and Stream (or whatever)? No techno-worries there. The only concern is if someone remembered to bring the toilet paper!

Five or six years ago I was moose hunting and came across what I thought was a special ops unit operating in the middle of the bush. There was a generator running, two laptops percolating and a satellite dish on top of an aluminum pole. I didn't ask any questions, but a twenty-something guy in hunter orange waved at me from behind his computer. I'm no Luddite, but I remembered thinking, "Couldn't you leave that stuff at home for a week?"

I suppose if you were having tech withdrawal, you could always drive into town for a fix.

Magazines work for me most of the time.

Traffic on most forums has certainly died down from what it was, say, 15 years ago.

YouTube is growing by leaps and bounds.

Took me a while to give up TV did it back in the mid 90's - girlfriend had to have tv so back on after 8 months . Shut it off again in 03' off for 2 years turned it back on for some reason - off in 2010 and wouldn't have it if the cable company paid me .
Turned the computer off 3ish years ago for several months - thinking of trying to end this addiction . Plenty of time to sit around on a computer when I'm too old to walk . Really sad at the time I waste reading the same old - same old stuff on this website . I could be fishing/hunting/shooting/camping/reloading/boating/motorcycling yet I sit here writing meaningless comments like this one .
Forums & magazines - should any of us healthy people care ? ...

Ya got me. I e-mail a couple times a week and visit two shooting/hunting and one pool/billiards forum. Never done or plan to do Face Book or Twitter or Instagram. etc. Don't do selfies, a bunch of texting and find I don't have a lot in common with those that do. I don't want to spend much time in the digital world. My smart phone don't seem so smart to me. I am also getting old and grouchy.

For books & magazines, all mine are read online now. I definitely prefers ebooks. And there is lots of free stuff out there if you like to read old classics. I don’t do any social media like Facebook, Twitter or any of the schitt. Fugg em.
And 24 Hour Campfire 🔥 is the Only forum I’m on.

My reason for hanging out on a couple shooting forums is because I live on a figurative island- I'm surrounded by a lot of good people but rarely am I able to talk about this stuff with anybody. If I wish to "talk guns/hunting" I have to either drive a good way, telephone, or resort to the Internet. Heck, the last decent local gun shop here in Annapolis closed a while back ending my chances to kibitz with like minded souls.

As for paper versus electrons, for reading give me the tactile joy of a real book any day. I never heard anybody say they looked forward to going home and curling up by the fire with a good Kindle. My favorite genres for leisure reading (to the tune of two or three books/week) is mystery fiction, thrillers, and spy novels. My source: the public library, but a few select authors I willingly buy as their new stuff comes out: James Lee Burke, John Sandford, Lee Child, Gerald Seymour, John LeCarre to name a few. For the rest I'm happy to let the County buy them and me borrow them. One thing I refuse to buy are paperbacks, but do so once a year for something to tuck into the game pouch of my Woolrich hunting coat. When I actually buy a book it is with the intent of keeping it and putting it on my shelf- paperbacks get tossed or given away so why spend good money on them?

I have three eight foot long, floor to ceiling shelf systems- all filled to capacity with reference stuff, gun books, fly fishing books, military history, classics, and select fiction- and still there are little piles of books scattered about. Would all those words fit in a compact digital device? Yep, but having all those books fills me with unbounded pleasure.

I agree with what seems to be the majority here regarding magazines. I take a couple subscriptions but only organization newsletter/magazines such as the Cast Bullet Association, American Single Shot Association, and the American Rifleman of course. I swap stuff around occasionally and garner some of the slick gun rags but the content of them has become rather boring to me and seem to pander to a far different gun loony than what I am, so I never buy them. Handloader and Rifle are exceptions, but only when there are articles I really want to read.

I can only speak for myself....hunting/firearms magazines died a very long time ago....I got tired of reading about the difference between two identical cartridges.....

Forums however is a total different thing.....I can actually learn stuff here...and on rare occasion even contribute my experiences a bit.....

I do subscribe to the Great Lakes Angler....fishing magazine.....There's still a lot to be learned in that scenario.