For the record, at time of writing, an electronic Clarkesworld subscription appears to be $2.99/month, increasing to $3.99/month in September.

It's not my first choice of science magazine subscription. So at $50/year, how much am I spending on subscriptions?

Is their digital-only subscription any cheaper? Don't need the paper one. If I do have to pay $50/year for their digital only subscription, do I get access to their back catalog for that, or only the new ones going forward?

I'm not just picking on Clarkesworld. For the longest time now, Analog has been under the impression that it's ok to half-ass it and have their digital edition not match up with the paper edition, not to mention refusing to release it in standard formats. Quite frankly, in a world where even National Geographic can't make it, what hope is there for these pulps? In an earlier time you might liken them to the farm leagues for genre novel publishing, but that's dying too.

Out of curiosity, must you subscribe to all magazines within your favorite genre(s), or is just one or two acceptable? If the latter, then I don't think you have to be rich.

I think there's an analogy with the maddening offer of streaming services, but in that case there's the FOMO effect and you "need" to be watching the same shows as your coworkers and friends in order to be able to discuss them... a more devious trap.

That was sort of my point. If only one or two are acceptable, Clarkesworld's never going to make the cut.

I'm wondering for whom it is their first or second choice.

Fifty bucks isn't even two hardcover books these days.

That's a lot of reading, if you're reading them from cover-to-cover.

Analog and Asimov's were bimonthly last I had subscribed, just 7 or 8 per year. They're not even novel-sized. When I had more time to read, I could keep up with those and still read 5 or 6 novels per month.

Dunno what I would have done if I'd been alive when there were more titles in publication. I think of the old stuff, I like Worlds of If, archive.org has most of those. The new stuff's a little too pandering anyway.

It's true. There were a lot more in the past. It was impossible to keep up. So much greatness to be found in these magazines though, I would hate not to read them cover-to-cover because when I've tried to skip around I invariably end up missing some story that turns out to blow my mind.

> The new stuff's a little too pandering anyway.

What do you mean by this? I think I've noticed the same thing, and it troubles me -- because I'm not sure who exactly they're pandering to (the set of non-readers who are uninterested in the genre?) or to what purpose. It could be, however, that we're not talking about the same thing...