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Post by david1 on Oct 27, 2023 0:24:39 GMT
Yes I agree with you HB70. There will be a person or two to help out if the computer has a glitch but there will be no cashier's, at least that is the plan.
Now that I can't drive I just order online all my groceries, they arrive at my door. Everything I need is on the website and so far no glitches in a year and a half. I love it. The future is here!
Dave
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Post by rtraincollector on Oct 27, 2023 12:40:45 GMT
I let my CTT subscription end with the Nov/Dec issue but I signed up for a trains.com subscription. With is I can read every issue of CTT going back to the first as well as all issues of Model Railroader, Trains, Classic Trains and Garden Railways. In addition to the magazines there is a host of other things such as videos, track plans, articles, how-tos and more. I just couldn't justify adding a magazine subscription.
For what it's worth, Model Railroader is published 12 times a year while CTT is only 6 times a year and apparently will be only 4 per year very soon. I'm thinking that there are a lot more HO and N scalers than O gaugers. That seems to suggest that the O gauge hobby is shrinking while the HO/N scale hobby is growing or at least holding its own. If the O gauge hobby is shrinking it would explain Lionel's strategy of marketing to those with deep pockets who are willing to pay for high prices.
What do you think? I agree Lionel has been more expensive it's whole life, but if there thinking of marketing for those with deeper pockets, there going to put themselves out of business, To me it is the person with smaller to medium pockets that would do them the best, but to achieve that they need to figure a way to bring a set out that doesn't break the averaged persons bank account. I can remember not that long ago Lionel put out a Lionmaster engine, 5 semi scale cars an oval of track with O48 and 8 sections of straight track there suggested retail price was $699.99 places like roe and trainworld probably had it at $575 to $599. today to get comparable set like that I would bet you would be talking over $1000 probably close to $1500. Even though I could afford it I wouldn't buy it. I think prices of trains are way to high.
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Post by dlagrua on Oct 27, 2023 14:19:58 GMT
I can see that the end of magazines is not far off. I've always enjoyed reading magazines as you can take them on the train, bus or even in the bathroom. You can read them anywhere but few in the Millennial, Genx, and Gen z generation read them. Going with an online publication may be the answer but IMO they are more difficult to index and read than print media. The cost of advertising in print media has risen sharply while circulation numbers have plunged. Not a formula for a business to prosper. Just ask the TCA what a waste of money it became. Today's laptops and smartphones are the new magazines.
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Post by chipset35 on Oct 28, 2023 14:04:08 GMT
I saw him at his booth this past York and I asked him if the magazine was going to be reduced to 4 times a year. He did say yes starting in 2024. Being a subscriber since the first issue in 1987 which was also 4 times a year but increased in the following years. With magazines going the way of the doe-doe bird I can see why the reduction of the printed magazine was done. He did mentioned that the magazine will also be online along with lots of other train content. Best to check it out on their web site. They have special going on now for those who want to subscribe and find all that pertains to to the changing scape of the magazine. Dave Online CTT is awesome. IMHO online is better than print always. No storage!
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Post by af3020 on Oct 28, 2023 15:56:45 GMT
The biggest issue I have with online everything is that of "Error 404 page not found." What is particularly depressing is this crops up repeatedly and it is not a matter of elapsed time before it occurs .
A good example is a series of posts over on the other forum which were made not too long ago. They concerned the evolution of American Flyer tunnels and American Flyer set boxes. I made sure to copy out all of the information and pictures as soon as the post string appeared and I did my usual triplicate backup with Western Digital external storage components. I was getting ready to make a recommendation to another poster concerning these posts and I went over there just to make sure I was referencing the right thing - all of the pictures are broken. In this case I e-mailed a copy of what I had saved to the other poster but if I had just bookmarked the string I would have a bookmark of little value.
The same thing holds true for technical publications. There is a trend in scientific publishing to point to material supplementary to the main points of the paper which is stored somewhere online. The problem is a number of editors of these journals are allowing material critical to the paper to be stored this way - what this means is if anything happens to that material the value of the paper is greatly diminished.
I realize there isn't anything I can do about these trends so I do backups. Of course if the material is MIA when I arrive then there is no recourse.
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Post by atsda on Oct 30, 2023 16:26:16 GMT
I have never had a subscription to DTT, CT and T; however, I do get the newsletters. It is likely that printing costs are getting higher, and without paid advertising to subsidize it, it has probably got too expensive. I am a member of LOTS (Lionel Operating Train Society) and get their printed magazine Switcher - it is published 6 times a year. I don't know of its future status. Alfred
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Post by healey36 on Oct 30, 2023 17:22:35 GMT
As a member of TCA, I request printed copies of The Quarterly, mostly because I prefer a hard copy over the electronic online version. Still, they are piling up and I rarely go back and look at the hard copies a third or fourth time. They are archived on the TCA site, so I should probably just jettison the paper or send them off to someone that has interest.
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Post by keithl on Oct 30, 2023 20:27:38 GMT
I've been a CTT subscriber since the late-1990s. I understand the changing economics of publishing and the hobby. However, if CTT does go to four issues next year, I'll let my subscription go. Six skinny issues per year is already an iffy value. Four skinny issues will definitely not be worth the cost of a subscription.
Online? No thank you. I'm a heavy computer user (I don't mean my weight!), but when it comes to a magazine, I want to read a magazine, i.e., in print. The same would apply to a book. I've had online access to both CTT and OGR. I tried it out, but I just don't use it.
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Post by healey36 on Oct 30, 2023 20:41:54 GMT
Could be worse...O-Scale Trains is going to an annual issue. I'm not sure how that business model works.
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