Is the demise of Publishers Clearing House a good thing or a bad thing?

My grandpa subcribed to Popular Science in the 90’s through PCH. He let me fill out the prize puzzles. We won a two book set of the World Book Dictionary, and a globe of the earth.

My grandparents always let me pick a subscription, and I loved it. But it was a bait and switch scam according to many other people. So a good thing in my opinion.

Culturally, legally, morally, historically, it can only be a good thing that the enterprise should fold (until someone buys the IP and runs a new scam) Free to play lottery is just another form of “free to use” anything. You are always the product.

If you are not buying the product, you ARE the product.

Prior to the internet, PCH and its main competitor American Family (the one with Ed McMahon) were far more important. We starved for things to read back then.
Plus, the fact that the prices were never a ripoff, really helped. They had good prices, usually lower than what you’d pay the magazine directly.
I don’t think the loss of PCH itself is good or bad.
But it’s a sign of bad things.
People don’t read as much anymore. They prefer to get their news from comedians if they’re liberal, or from political talk show hosts, if they are conservative.
News magazines still provide a very important function, not the least of which is their investigative reporting and long-form articles.
But most Americans are too stupid for that kind of thing, now.

After high school, I worked for Reader’s Digest, which was a big employer in my area (beautiful piece of property, old, historic building). Reader’s Digest always had multiple sweepstakes going on, and received thousands and thousands of pieces of mail per day for people looking for the grand prize. I am not sure what the prizes were or who got them. This was in the mid-80s. This was in the time when every doctor’s office had the latest copy of the Reader’s Digest, and it was a very popular magazine. They also had books, CDs and other products (many of which were for sale in the employee gift shop). When I went for the interview, I took a train and they sent a Lincoln Town Car with a driver to pick me up at the station. They also had buses for employees, that ran along certain routes, for 3 dollars a week (round trip). Lunch in the cafeteria was about 1 dollar or maybe 1.25 per meal, good food, too. They were a great employer.

I consider it a bad thing. Not that I care about PCH, but it points to the fact that printed magazines and books are obsolete. I think that is a bad thing. Yes, you can always get it online or electronically, but what happens when the power goes out? You can read by candle light but you cannot use electronics without electricity.

I never wanted to see Ed McMahon walking up my driveway anyway.
It was just a money scam to get people to buy magazines. Magazines have shifted to Internet viewing. There are plenty of similar scams out there for that.
This being said, I still get 3 hard copy magazines every month (Psychology Today, Rolling Stone, Food and Wine).

I subscribe to The New Yorker. I would love to subscribe to The Atlantic (which used to be The Atlantic Monthly) but I barely read The New Yorker so I can’t justify subscribing to another.