
Playboy magazine will stop producing a print version - haunter
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/an-open-letter-to-our-team-and-partners-b859b1a4c663
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exogeny
Here's an story that is semi-related to this. I visited the Playboy Mansion
about five years ago for an event, and it was easily the strangest, most
surreal residence I've ever seen. Nothing about it at all symbolized class or
any kind of sexiness; it was simply run-down, unkempt, and almost comically
dated in basically every way. Not to mention the weirdness of having things
like a personal zoo on the grounds.

Over the course of the event, two incredibly odd things happened that I'll
never forget: first, every twenty minutes, a new literal busload of scantily-
clad women showed up until the ratio was easily 10:1 to their favor; and two,
about halfway through the night, Hef walked out on his balcony, waved to us,
and then went back inside without saying a word.

It was fun for a bucket list-type thing, but man, it really popped the balloon
of whatever fantastical idea I had about the Playboy Mansion and what it
symbolized. Instead it was just old and tired, which is probably a metaphor
for the brand and it's patriarch.

~~~
listenallyall
To be fair, 5 years ago (2015) Hef was 89 years old. Can't really expect his
house to be in tip-top physical shape, he probably rarely left his bedroom. It
was probably pretty cool back in the 70's.

~~~
catalogia
I wouldn't expect a man of his age and wealth to do the house chores
himself... although I suppose the ability to effectively managing his
employees might go out the window too.

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kranner
Title ("Playboy magazine is closing down") is misleading. They are stopping
the print version of the magazine, not digital.

> With all of this in mind, we have decided that our Spring 2020 Issue, which
> arrives on U.S. newsstands and as a digital download this week, will be our
> final printed publication for the year in the U.S. We will move to a
> digital-first publishing schedule for all of our content including the
> Playboy Interview, 20Q, the Playboy Advisor and of course our Playmate
> pictorials. In 2021, alongside our digital content offerings and new
> consumer product launches, we will bring back fresh and innovative printed
> offerings in a variety of new forms–through special editions, partnerships
> with the most provocative creators, timely collections and much more. Print
> is how we began and print will always be a part of who we are.

~~~
listenallyall
so is your own comment: "They are stopping the print version"

> bring back fresh and innovative printed offerings

> print will always be a part of who we are

~~~
smacktoward
"The print version" in the parent comment is clearly referring to the flagship
magazine, which is indeed what they are shutting down.

They're saying they may still produce printed products that aren't the
magazine. Which may be true, but the magazine is what most people think of
when they hear the name "Playboy."

~~~
listenallyall
I disagree with your comment and stand by my own.

~~~
dang
I think the problem here is that they're vague about what the story is. I read
the paragraph more times than it deserves, and all that's clear is that they
won't print a magazine this year after their Spring issue, plus maybe they
will or won't do various things in the future. Given the vagueness, it's not
surprising that you and kranner interpreted it differently.

I've changed the title to say "stop producing a print version" since they're
at least going to stop for now, whether or not they start again.

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SiVal
Wow, there's a press release that's so desperately spinning so many claims of
so many kinds (social, business, health, educational, tech, ethical...) that
it's almost impossible for me to figure out what they are even announcing. I
didn't expect I would care, whatever they did, but I thought it might be some
sort of "end of an era" historical thing. I didn't expect an announcement
hidden so deep in the poo that I'm not sure I ever found it.

~~~
sbuttgereit
What's perhaps more interesting to me is that a company that historically is a
publisher, with aspirations of becoming a primarily digital publisher, needs
"Medium" as a platform to get their message out.

It's not necessarily dumb (I wonder how many of their properties are blocked
by corporate content filters), but fascinating that they don't have a
"corporate channel" with which to communicate this.

~~~
true_religion
Most adult companies have a clean brandname that actually does thing like rent
office space, pay checks, or put out company blogs.

Playboy on the other hand always took the stance of erotica being nothing to
be ashamed about, and was a key fighter for free speech during its early days.

That era sadly, seems to be over.

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WalterBright
I bought an online issue of a magazine recently for $5.99. I can only view it
while online, or using their special app.

Essentially, no thanks.

~~~
kranner
This is the situation with Kindle books as well.

Although the Kindle app does work when offline, I can't change the font and
what is most important to me: the line-height. Also the macOS Kindle app
doesn't render Devanagari fonts correctly (I'm guessing out-of-date WebKit),
so it is essential to be able to use a third-party viewer if I want to read
Hindi Kindle books on my 4K monitor. Also I'd like to keep them in my Calibre
library along with the rest of my digital books so I can use my existing
categories.

The only solution so far is to remove the DRM. Unfortunately it (probably)
violates the terms of use.

~~~
WalterBright
I only buy DRM stuff for throwaway items. Anything I want to keep, I'll only
buy a pdf or hardcopy. I seriously doubt any app to read a magazine offline is
going to work in 70 years, while I still have magazines my father saved from
70 years ago, and my grandmother's Nat Geo collection from the 1920's.

~~~
mjevans
Don't count on PDF being enough. That monstrosity of a format can now contain
JavaScript and elements that phone home / authorize a render / download
decryption keys etc...

~~~
salawat
It's had that for at least 7 years. I had the misfortune of having to
implement a form with that way back when.

PDF is a horrible set of standards. Abandon hope all ye who have to dive into
that spec.

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stevage
This title is so misleading!

The magazine isn't closing down. They're just not doing print editions
anymore, like many other magazines and newspapers.

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ChrisArchitect
well we'll always have a digital copy of Lena somewhere

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna)

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happytoexplain
Tragic, yet inevitable?

