Step away from the dead trees

I've been a New Yorker subscriber for years.  I love the magazine.  But in the last couple of years, I've grown dissatisfied with the way it reaches me -- namely, in print.

It comes every week, this physical object of paper and ink.  They pile up on the kitchen counter, the bedside table, the recycling bin.  They add to the poundage of pages silently glaring at me, waiting for me to lug them somewhere and read them.

That's not how I read anymore.  I can access all the stories in the magazine on the computer because I'm a subscriber.  They're everywhere I might want to read them.  Why do they still insist on sending me the printed magazine through the mail?

I've been wishing for an online-only subscription for quite a while now.  And my prayers have finally been answered.  The New Yorker announced an iPad subscription today, replacing the previous model where you had to buy individual issues on the iPad app.  You can get a combined print-iPad subscriptions, or -- just for me -- iPad only.  Ahhhh ... that's what I wanted.

Let me be clear -- I don't want the printed magazine to disappear as an option for everyone.  I prefer to have the choice, though, to pay for New Yorker content without having to receive physical objects in the mail.  And I'll bet there's more like me out there.