
Hacker Monthly will publish its final issue 12 months from now - Zweihander
http://blog.hackermonthly.com/final-issue.html
======
RBerenguel
I have articles in a couple issues, so I got these free, then a year free and
then I subscribed once my free year finished. Probably been a subscriber (free
or otherwise) for 3 or 4 years, not sure by now.

I have the deep feeling that the quality of the content shared here on
HackerNews has dwindled (may also be that it has drowned by the increase in
traffic, though), and this may have (negatively) impacted HM readership.

As a sample point, I was pretty close to cancelling my subscription, since
during the past 12-13 issues didn't have that interesting content, compared to
the previous ~24-30. Of course, totally subjective, but a year and a half ago
I was happy to see the "HM issue available for download email," and now it was
more of a "meh." The quality of the magazine was always superb, though:
perfectly crafted with aesthetically pleasant articles and layout. So, not to
blame the team there.

I hope you luck in your next venture!

~~~
WA
This discussion about HN link quality is old and comes up frequently. I'm
mostly a lurker. Thing is, I haven't read a complaint about the "low quality
on HN" in quite a while.

About a year ago or two, these objections would be posted multiple times every
day.

Maybe HN declined from 5 years ago, but I think it improved over the last year
or so, because a lot of marketing BS isn't here anymore.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>> This discussion about HN link quality is old and comes up frequently.

While this is true, I've been reading HN for about 5 years. The first two
lurking, the last three actually posting and commenting.

From what I remember, HN used to be very technical and startup oriented, which
is what got me hooked. Over the past two years or so, I'm seeing a lot of
articles on things which are not directly to tech or startups. I've accepted
the fact I have to do a lot more filtering and searching to find articles I'm
actually interested in. Not a big deal, but something I didn't have to do 2 or
3 years ago.

~~~
dang
There's a lot of bias in how each of us remembers these things, but one thing
we can say for sure is that HN has always been about a lot more than tech and
startups, because that's why it was launched in the first place:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html)

------
lifeisstillgood
Thank you for your efforts. Publishing any work takes significant work, and
HackerNewsMonthly always looked professional and seemed to have a good and
representative selection of posts.

You have contributed to the community and made the world a little better, and
no matter what your goals were or are, you should count this as a success.
"From the people who brought you HNMonthly" will be a valuable sentence for
most things you choose to do (most, as say, any teenage children would not be
impressed).

Thank you and good luck in the future.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thank you.

------
thom
If you are in the market for a hacker-centric magazine and this news saddens
you, you might check out Hack Circus:

[http://www.hackcircus.com/](http://www.hackcircus.com/)

------
tinco
Is it profitable? If you're not making enough perhaps you could sell it to
someone in a lower income country or to someone with a lower income
expectance? Still working on it for 12 months seems like a really long time.

~~~
Loic
Sometimes, you are profitable but you know this is not the way to continue.
You also know that it is better to stop than to let someone continue without
the same level of commitment to the product/service. I closed a service once,
it was profitable, but it was better to close. It took me 18 months to close
it, ensuring the existing customers could migrate smoothly somewhere else.

Lim is respecting his customers, giving them time. He is getting all my
respect for that.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thanks. Exactly how I felt about closing it and not selling to someone else.

------
SpaceInvader
I didn't knew such magazine existed. It's not popular enough, that might be
the reason (just guessing).

~~~
xtrumanx
I remember when it launched here. First few issues got a ton of upvotes and
visibility upon release here but then the PDF editions weren't free to
download anymore and it didn't get as much attention on new issues.

I really wish the PDF editions were always free to download but if it was
competing with the print-edition subscription business I guess I understand
why it was locked down.

~~~
Thiz
This is a very important point. I got the first pdfs for free and loved the
format but didn't want to subscribe (poor as hell) so I believe if they
allowed the digital edition for free to browse on their website and to
download as pdf, they would have a much much wider and recurring audience and
would have made more money inserting ads, well, just like every other magazine
out there.

------
avinassh
Had no idea that it existed. All the best for your next venture!

OT: Does HN employ any licensing on the content? I checked FAQ/Guidelines.
Couldn't find anything about HN content. So anyone can create something like
OP or would it require special permission from YC?

Also can this idea extended for Reddit subs?

~~~
patio11
Articles submitted to HN remain the copyright of the people who wrote them,
not of YC. (HN Monthly has been scrupulous in observing copyrights.)

Comments on HN, ditto, although YC has an implicit license to (at a minimum)
display them.

------
partiallogic
I discovered Hacker Monthly a little over a month ago and subscribed straight
away. I rarely visit HN as my schedule doesn't permit it so having a curated
well formatted chunk of stuff to read when I can was amazing and pretty much
led me to buying a new iPad. I'm gutted that HM is coming to an end but
greatly appreciate that it isn't an abrupt end and I still have a whole other
year of issues to look forward to. I'm so grateful for your hard work over all
these years and having access to all the previous issues gives me a huge
amount of content to make my way through. Good luck with all your future
endeavours!

------
3stripe
When I started blogging a couple of years ago, Hacker Monthly MADE MY YEAR
when they put my 'Why I Cycled 100 Miles to Meet My First Customer' story on
the front cover

([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4796755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4796755))

So I just wanted to send you a hug over the internet.

I've loved getting a copy of the magazine by email every month since then.

All the best from London,

James

------
anonfunction
This is the first I head of it and I must say it looks great. I would like to
buy previous issues, is that possible?

~~~
bearwithclaws
Yup. You can still subscribe now and get all the previous issues for free.

~~~
anonfunction
How about the print versions?

------
kfk
Great magazine, it’s a pity this is the first time I hear about it! Could you
share a bit what type of customers did you gather? What did they like the most
about HackerMonthly? Would have this worked online-only or was the print
version part of the great value of this magazine?

------
duck
Lim is a great guy who has put in so much work to make an awesome publication
- it really is a great example of a project done well. I started my newsletter
about the same time and it has been great to work with him over the years.
Really sad to see it go!!

------
orph4nus
I subscribed since 5 weeks now, as it was only then I discovered it. I must
say, this news saddens me a lot. I've been downloading a lot of the past
issues and read articles that I either missed (a lot of them), and articles
that have been posted way before I ever heard of hackernews. Now I'm totally a
fan of this magazine, and I deeply how some brave soul(s) is/are there to take
over the beautiful work you have done. Thank you for the time and energy
you've put into this!

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thanks.

I won't be selling the site. I'll probably leave the site up (for as long as I
can). There just won't be any new issue. People can still go to the site and
buy digital/print copies.

------
csomar
Could you share the numbers after you finally close it? The number of
subscribers, sales, expensed, profit, traffic, conversion... I'm interested by
such stats.

~~~
bemmu
Maybe put those in the final issue :)

------
ancymon
Why?

~~~
bearwithclaws
I'm not sure there's a specific reason. 5 years is a long time (for internet
years). I guess I just wanted to shut it down before it wither and die. I also
wanted to explore other options (e.g work on new, different things).

~~~
dualogy
Haha, I went for the wither-and-die approach myself.. end result is the same,
and inexplicably it's still sending "sufficient" funds my way. Major props,
next time I shouldn't miss my Penang flight.. Phil ;)

------
soft_dev_person
This looks really nice. Subscribed!

So, how many new subscriptions have you got so far after HN caught this?

Edit: That wasn't an accusation of cynicism, just curious.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thanks. Certainly more than I expected. And I definitely wouldn't expect
people to subscribe to a service that's shutting down soon. (also didn't
expect this to get on front page)

------
ashleyp
Damn no idea this existed :(

~~~
br3w5
Me neither - I'll be buying a bunch of these then

~~~
ashleyp
Yeah I feel this would have made my life much easier. I love having paper
copies of stuff too =(

------
janlukacs
Sorry to hear this Lim, i liked the concept (advertised with you in the past
:) Best of luck with your new ventures.

------
baby
I really wanted to subscribe at one point, but then I wondered why I would do
that since I was already reading HN daily. Why wait for the news? I guess
other people who would be interested in such a magazine would face the same
problem, content is already here on time and free.

~~~
picks_at_nits
See the comments elsewhere in the thread about HN a a whole gradually changing
focus from a more education/opinion site to a news site.

A rule-of-thumb to distinguish the two is that a news article is the kind of
thing you read right away, an educational article is something you
deliberately bookmark to read later when you have some time to reflect on its
content.

The early issues of HN are full of articles that are as valid today as they
were then. You may not have minded waiting for them.

~~~
baby
well, for _most_ articles I do mind reading them on time because the
discussions they create around me will fathom quickly after the trend/buzz has
passed. So you do want to be there when discussions happen.

Talking about discussion, it happens a lot that I don't even look at the
article and just look at the HN comments. I think I'm not the only one who
would say HN is mostly HN because it has great comments.

------
tdsamardzhiev
1\. Just learned about Hacker Monthly 2\. Downloaded first issue and read
immediately. 3\. Subscribed for 1yr and started reading from 2nd issue on.

I want you to know that after 5 years, there are still people finding out
about your work and regarding it as awesome :)

------
tymski
This is a bummer and not because I am a subscriber, but because I would have
been one had I known about Hacker Monthly. Sorry if I missed it somewhere, but
will the issues be archived somewhere for newcomers to read?

------
jscheel
I read the headline thinking it was talking about 2600 Hacker Quarterly.
Haven't really looked into Hacker Monthly, but I hate to see someone have to
shut down their company.

------
bane
5 years is a long time to do anything, but what an awesome run!

Congrats on doing it and to all involved. It was obviously a labor of love.

------
gadders
Good luck in your future ventures. I hoped you learnt a lot that you can take
to your next business.

------
aestetix
It's worth noting that 2600 is still going strong after 30 years.

------
davidslv
how about someone take the place and don't let this die ?

------
midnitewarrior
It is unfortunate they couldn't have had a more original name than stealing
2600's magazine "Hacker Quarterly" name and changing "Quarterly" to "Monthly".

------
computador
Too bad, I was considering subscribing to the printed version in a few months
ahead.

