Did you see the video? This isn't just a PDF of the magazine, it's a 530 MB presentation with video and interactive 3D graphics. I would pay more than $5 for this.

It's only $10/year in the US if you snag it off Amazon. $5/issue is nuts especially considering there are no printing or mailing costs.

So basically, the print version is the advertising-supported version. Because there are still a lot of print advertisers who they need to please by keeping their circulation numbers up. It's a weird digital/physical arbitrage.

Normally the digital version of something costs less but people's perceived value is far lower. Now we have a digital version of a magazine with a higher perceived value that costs significantly more. Well, if that was going to happen, it's fitting that it should be Wired who brings that to market.

But yet the digital version is still loaded with ads.

I'm in the same boat, $40/year as a Canuck.

I'd like both, and would pay $60/year for that.

I'm expecting Wired will do something that motivates current print subscribers to keep the magazine and also grab the iPad version.

That said, the iPad experience is really nice. It's a hefty download as all the media is included (like the Toy Story 3 clip on the front page), but it's so well done.

I'd buy it if I'm getting on a plane. Other than that, I just read their website.

Yeah, that's the key thing: in comparison to the print product, it's attractive to me.

But if I can get the info I'm looking for from their free no-storage website (and 30 seconds later bounce to another website, as we web folks are wont to do), it's really hard for me to get motivated to remember to go buy a $4.99 1 GB (500 MB on my iPad, 500 MB on my Mac where iTunes lives) app every month.

How can they successfully compete with themselves? And yet they can't shut off their free website and become utterly irrelevant.