It also bundles in O'Reilly Learning membership, and is cheaper than you would otherwise pay for the same...
But... do people join ACM? They seemed like a supreme institution back when I was in the University but rarely hear about them nowadays.
I honestly joined because of the O'Reilly Learning membership, but since joining I've found value in the magazine and community.
What you miss is quality, not printed magazines.
I'm sure there are good articles online, but it seems very hard for me to justify spending the time reading them when there is so much else. There is too much choice.
I remember a teacher at school telling me how once he bought all his favourite films on DVD he never watched them again. Once it becomes a conscious choice to spend your time on this rather than that it often ends up spent on nothing at all.
I've come to realise that choice (or freedom) is just not the greatest thing for humans. I firmly believe most people benefit from some kind of external structure and constraint. I think declining happiness, especially for women, is mostly due to this structure being removed. I also notice that the best art tends to be made under tight budgets and strict constraints. Artists tend to produce worse work when they are given freedom to do whatever they want.
https://fusionretrobooks.com/products/the-story-of-the-commo...
1: https://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/collections/all/products/commo...
I am pretty sure there are far more magazines/podcasts/blogs which work with just supporting readers, but you have to find them.
Let's not forget the case of the beloved H-online.com which could not sustain themselves despite top-notch quality.
Race to the bottom indeed...
I tried purchasing a few magazines about music production this summer but they read mostly like advertisement brochures, all “reviews” read like ghost written blog posts and there was no soul, for the lack of a better word, to be found.
In short - get of my lawn you damn kids, things were better in my days.