The End of the World as We Know it?

[Scribble]

Honestly, with the old dead tree subscription way, once I subscibed, I didn't have to do anything but wait for the magazine to get in my hands (actually, not living in the USA I "subscribed" with my game store, so I had to get there once a month, but you get the idea).

Now I have to check daily, wade through the site and download a dozen files and print them all at my expenses if I want the same end product.

For the same price? Not worth it.

Conversely for me to make use of the old dead tree formats I had to:

Copy the article I liked somehow, or lug the magazine(s) with me to a game.

Either option required me taking a magazine or stack of magazines to some place either a game or a copy machine, or me retyping the parts of the article.

I also had to have some way to memorize or log where articles were if I decided I wanted to use them later on down the road.


Now I can just cut and paste what I need, or quickly just print off an article. I can also use the search function to help me better find the articles (though I agree that the archives they have needs some extra work.)

It's all around easier for me to actually make use of the stuff I get (especially the adventures.)

All things have drawbacks though, for instance at this point it's harder for me to read the articles on the can, or just curled up on my couch or soemthing... But again I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, since I primarily buy the subscription to make use of the content.

For say "Draft Magazine" another thing I subscribe to, if they went to an all digital format, I would be much less inclined to subscribe.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Honestly, with the old dead tree subscription way, once I subscibed, I didn't have to do anything but wait for the magazine to get in my hands (actually, not living in the USA I "subscribed" with my game store, so I had to get there once a month, but you get the idea).

And yet you also had to flip past 10 times as many ads as now while doing it. So I don't see why the online ad issue *is* an issue.

 

[Ryujin]

And yet you also had to flip past 10 times as many ads as now while doing it. So I don't see why the online ad issue *is* an issue.

In a print magazine, the major source of revenue is frequently the ads, rather than the purchase of the magazine. In the case of Wizards' online model, the ads do not bring in outside revenue.

 

[billd91]

In a print magazine, the major source of revenue is frequently the ads, rather than the purchase of the magazine. In the case of Wizards' online model, the ads do not bring in outside revenue.

Back in the day, I learned about a lot of cool products and companies though ads. Sure, they served TSR to generate revenue, but they also served me by letting me know about other products I might be interested in.

 

[Dannager]

Because storage conditions (temperature and humidity), wear and tear, and magnetic fields mess with magnetic media. I've had clients who used the same diskette exclusively, for a few years straight, then wondered why they lost their data.

Wait until people start to realize that CD/DVD disks aren't forever, either.

Yeah, if I'd been asked if digital storage was more reliable than physical storage ten years ago, I probably would have said "No."

But I'm confident that at this stage in the game, digital storage is essentially foolproof, especially if you store the data in more than one location.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah, if I'd been asked if digital storage was more reliable than physical storage ten years ago, I probably would have said "No."

But I'm confident that at this stage in the game, digital storage is essentially foolproof, especially if you store the data in more than one location.

It's still not really more dependable. I've seen estimates as short as 3-5 years for the life expectancy of CDs and DVDs, and have had burned backups become unreadable in 5 years, myself. Archival grade media is supposed to last up to 100 years but:

(1) Who uses archival grade disks?

...and ...

(2) who has been able to test them for 100 years?

One of the goals, of digital distribution, is to make sure that you can't back it up in multiple locations, in order to combat piracy.

I have 50,000+ digital images, from years of motorsports photography, and I've almost lost everything on a couple of occasions, despite maintaining no less than 3 copies of everything. I'm currently running 4 backups, one of which is on a RAID-5 storage box, and I still worry.

 

[Dannager]

It's still not really more dependable. I've seen estimates as short as 3-5 years for the life expectancy of CDs and DVDs, and have had burned backups become unreadable in 5 years, myself.

I'm not talking about storing it on disc media. The time for that is past. I'm talking about a local storage of some sort (hard disk drive or portable memory) coupled with reliable cloud storage. In the event that one fails, the other is an easy back-up method. Hell, the biggest cloud storage services do their own backup to ensure that you don't lose access to your content even if their primary storage fails.

And that's really where the advantage lies: if you own a physical book, nothing short of going out and buying a second copy of that same book will protect you in the event that your original book is lost or destroyed. And, even then, unless you're storing those two books in separate locations (say, one at home, one in a self-storage unit), it's quite possible that the event that claims the first copy could claim the second as well.

With digital storage, all you need is a couple clicks to create a back-up, and there are a ton of reliable, free cloud storage options out there. It's really quite difficult for me to imagine ways in which you could totally and permanently lose your content if you store it in this manner - I mean, outside of an apocalypse event that destroys all modern infrastructure.

And this doesn't even account for the fact that content stored in the cloud is accessible from just about anywhere. It is at your beck and call, no matter your physical location, as long as you have internet access (a service that is fast becoming ubiquitous).

 

[Ryujin]

I'm not talking about storing it on disc media. The time for that is past. I'm talking about a local storage of some sort (hard disk drive or portable memory) coupled with reliable cloud storage. In the event that one fails, the other is an easy back-up method. Hell, the biggest cloud storage services do their own backup to ensure that you don't lose access to your content even if their primary storage fails.

And that's really where the advantage lies: if you own a physical book, nothing short of going out and buying a second copy of that same book will protect you in the event that your original book is lost or destroyed. And, even then, unless you're storing those two books in separate locations (say, one at home, one in a self-storage unit), it's quite possible that the event that claims the first copy could claim the second as well.

With digital storage, all you need is a couple clicks to create a back-up, and there are a ton of reliable, free cloud storage options out there. It's really quite difficult for me to imagine ways in which you could totally and permanently lose your content if you store it in this manner - I mean, outside of an apocalypse event that destroys all modern infrastructure.

And this doesn't even account for the fact that content stored in the cloud is accessible from just about anywhere. It is at your beck and call, no matter your physical location, as long as you have internet access (a service that is fast becoming ubiquitous).

As a computer professional, I can imagine several ways that you could temporarily or permanently lose access to such data. As a computer professional, I also distrust the concept of the cloud.

 

[Dannager]

As a computer professional, I can imagine several ways that you could temporarily or permanently lose access to such data. As a computer professional, I also distrust the concept of the cloud.

Would you be able to explain some of these ways to me? Keep in mind that in order for you to lose this data, temporarily or not, you'd need to lose both the cloud and the local storage instances of the data in a short enough time-frame that you cannot restore one with the other.

Apocalyptic collapse of modern infrastructure doesn't count - I've acknowledged that this would probably result in the data being unrecoverable, but frankly, if something like this happened the idea of needing to shepherd my D&D books would be juuuuuuust about the furthest thing from my mind.

 

[Ryujin]

Would you be able to explain some of these ways to me? Keep in mind that in order for you to lose this data, temporarily or not, you'd need to lose both the cloud and the local storage instances of the data in a short enough time-frame that you cannot restore one with the other.

Apocalyptic collapse of modern infrastructure doesn't count - I've acknowledged that this would probably result in the data being unrecoverable, but frankly, if something like this happened the idea of needing to shepherd my D&D books would be juuuuuuust about the furthest thing from my mind.

I'll give you the way that's easiest to understand, given today's computer experience; computer exploitation.

On a daily basis, I deal with computers that have been infected with Viruses and spyware, that may or may not have also caused the installation of a rootkit, allowing remote access and control of the system.

So the easiest thing to envision, that would cut you off from both local and cloud storage, would be a criminal invasion of a system, in order to exploit the local system and co-opt any and all storage that's available. I've seen it from a Windows system, from which a Unix-based production printer was exploited over a network. The PC was left unusable while the passwords to the printer's storage were altered, locking out legitimate users, so that it could be used to store illicit files.