If I may be so bold as to add my thoughts?
Whether you buy a magazine or not is entirely up to you. It's the same about an event. Like it or loathe it, it is up to you whether you go/buy or not. As an individual, if you decide to keep on buying or not you will not have a great effect upon a magazine's existence. Only as a group large enough to have an impact will you have any lasting effect. Requesting a magazine reduce its advertising content is a waste of your time. It will never happen. Not until it's on the verge of sliding over the edge.
A magazine doesn't exist
for the scene. It exists
because of the scene. Popular magazines are rarely started before there is a scene and enough support from the public and industry to keep them afloat! That's the general rule - and there will be the odd exception.
A magazine
contributes to a scene by passing on information. It seeks to educate, entertain and amuse. As a by-product it can take up a role to encourage others to participate in the scene - good for the scene and good for itself, if it can convert those people into paying customers.
People are what make the scene
combined with the magazines (to a small extent) and the shows (to a large extent). The shows make the scene more of what it is than the magazines. Take away all the shows and the scene is no more. Take away the magazines and all we're left with is no magazines. We still have shows. We still have a scene.
VW businesses exist because of the scene, not because of the magazines. They can get a
lift in sales through the magazines, but most would not fall apart because the magazines suddenly collapsed - other than those who rely 100% on either the repeated 'good word' or the income derived from adverts placed in the magazines. Do you think VW Heritage (as an example of a large business) would collapse if all major magazines collapsed? No, of course not. When was the last time you saw an advert for Laurie Pettitt, master engine builder? And yet how many engines has that man built, I wonder, without the help of a piece of paper or a written good word?
A large magazine title exists wholly to make a profit - achieved through magazine sales and advertising income, plus any other means - a profitable show perhaps? It
does not exist to keep its own people in work (it just has to - a by-product the accountants would love to see reduced in cost!). At the end of the day it must pay its share of rents, rates, insurances, printers, employees, management staff, plus other costs, etc. but its objective is not to exist to pay them. It exists to make a profit and to pay its shareholders or owners - the vast majority of which couldn't give a flying monkey about
your VW scene - they're the ones that don't drive cars like you and I, and probably look down on rusty Bays!
Free online magazines are unusual in that they seem to buck the trend. However, they too need to create wealth - for the writers, the managers, the owners... etc. No wealth means no growth, after a while. That's why we've decided to sell issue #4 of Aircoooled Classics - VW & Porsche. But our ratio of advertisers to content will always be restricted. Have you seen issue #3? How's that for a small ratio?
http://www.acmag.co.uk And we're not even charging you to read issue #3!
