I've been a subscriber to The New Yorker since I moved to France many years ago.

Most of the subscription price –over $100 a year for at least the past ten years, per my recollection– represents postal costs. This is a price I've been happy to pay: for this reader, it's been part of the cost of the content, even though it ends up in the pockets of intermediaries.

Of course, I bear another cost: even under the best of circumstances, I receive each issue about a week after readers in the US, were the magazine is based. This cost I've been less happy to pay –some pieces remain worthwhile but lose their crispness after a week– but I've always thought that this was an inevitable product of distance.

The New Yorker now offers its international subscribers a choice:

  • The print edition, delivered weekly by post, at an annual cost of € 138; or
  • The digital edition, available over the web ever Monday (when the issue appears on American newsstands), at an annual cost of €30.

The New Yorker throws in some sweeteners or freebies: all subscribers can access the magazine's archives, and receive a weekly e-mail summary of the newest issue's contents.

What I like about the offer is that The New Yorker lets subscribers choose. Those who opt for print delivery see that printing and postage costs run to €100 a year.

That's a cost that I'll probably continue to pay. I'm used to reading newspapers on screens, but still have the habit of reading magazines in print form. Maybe this will change over time, or maybe it won't.

For people like me, the savings of a digital edition subscription would likely prove illusory. I'd want to print most or all of each issue. This would involve costs for paper and ink. Mostly it would involve a time cost (that I could cnvert to a financial cost by hiring someone to print the file for me).