It is sad news indeed that JPG Magazine is shutting down. I was a fan of JPG when Derek Powazek began it, and fell out of love with it when Derek was no longer part of it. The closure of JPG Magazine begs an important question:

Will people pay for a printed version of what could be made available online?

The answer of course, is yes. People still buy newspapers, although the numbers are dropping. Moleskines are the rage. It will be some time before we see the end of paper.

JPG Magazine was printed on high-end glossy paper. Its closure means that people, for the most part, are satisfied with online images, even though they provide no tactile satisfaction and are often constrained to small resolutions. The improvement in quality of the printed photo over the Flickr image isn’t worth paying for, making the business of JPG Magazine an unsustainable one.

So what would make you pay for something in print? These are a 2 of my own reasons, feel free to add your own. That I couldn’t think of any more makes me pessimistic about the print industry as a whole.

• A substantial amount of information that has to be packaged as a whole (e.g. a book)
• It is important for the info to be electricity-independent (e.g. first-aid manual)