Posted on 12/01/2023 1:22:30 PM PST by Red Badger
Just three years after the iconic magazine abandoned its print version and went all-digital, Popular Science is now halting its subscription service entirely. The brand itself will live on — their site will still run tech stories and news articles, and they have two podcasts that will keep getting new episodes — but no more quarterly releases. While you can’t complain too much about a 151 year run, it’s still sad to see what was once such an influential publication slowly become just another cog in the content mill.
Started as a monthly magazine all the way back in 1872, Popular Science offered a hopeful vision of what was over the horizon. It didn’t present a fanciful version of what the next 100 years would look like, but rather, tried to read the tea leaves of cutting edge technology to offer a glimpse of what the next decade or so might hold. Flip through a few issues from the 1950s and 60s, and you won’t see pulpy stories about humanity conquering the stars or building a time machine. Instead the editors got readers ready for a day when they’d drive cars with warbird-derived turbochargers, and enjoy more powerful tools once transistor technology allowed for widespread use of small brushless motors. It wasn’t just armchair engineering either, issues would often include articles written by the engineers and researchers that were on the front lines.
But Popular Science wasn’t just about the future, it also provided plenty of contemporary content for those who liked to toy with technology at home. You could find articles about building your own test equipment, or setting up your own workshop. From woodworking to homebrew Geiger counters, there was a little something for everyone.
This focus on the hobbyist wasn’t without its downside. For the last decade or two, the magazine seemed to have more advertisements trying to sell the reader on the latest wiz-bang gadgetry than it did articles. Then again, there are precious few printed publications that didn’t suffer that particular fate.
Much like when MAKE went through its troubles back in 2019, we have to admit there’s a bit of irony at work here. The reality is, sites like the one you’re reading right now are the reason tech magazines have become a dying breed. But even if the age of print is coming to a close, we still have great respect for the seminal publications that came before the Internet took over our lives.
Surely many of the people in this community were inspired to pick up their first soldering iron by something they saw in a magazine like Popular Science, Byte, Popular Electronics, or Hands-On Electronics. We can only hope to do their legacy justice for the next generation.
I miss radio shack.
And thanks to the fascist surveillance state, I also miss rotary phones.
Another casualty of climate change .
Does that mean the flying car PS promised me back in the 50’s won’t be delivered?
There was precious little science left in it. Which was why it was no longer popular.
“One was making a hydrofoil boat using board and marine plywood.”
I remember that clearly. I bought the plans, but never got very far with the project. We lived on the East Hill above Cayuga Lake back then and it was the PERFECT place for a small hydroplane boat like that.
I was just looking for the plans and couldn’t find them. Maybe it was in Science & Mechanics magazine or Popular Mechanics magazine.
Nope, don’t remember that one. Instrumentation like that back then was not an easy thing to do.
Sad, enjoyed the monthly endeavors of Gus Wilson and his assistant Stan in the Model Garage as they solved peoples automotive problems the old fashion before computers and new part boltet oners.
It went Hard Left .
Bye .
There goes another of the magazines my dad used to subscribe to. He used to look forward to his monthly Scientific American, too - that’s turned into pure trash which regularly flouts science to promote left-wing ideology. At least Popular Science avoided that fate and chose the nobler option of just dying.
I stopped reading it exactly for this reason.
Ditto. The last issue I got was 20 or more years ago.
Most of the articles were leftist extremist propaganda.
I do still have issues 50 to 100 or so years old.
Like Scientific American, lost their readers when they lost the science.
One Christmas Break, I checked out the New Yorker bound copies from 1941-1942. It was amazing to see how the country changed. I wish I could get the GQ magazines from the 1980’s.
Same here. Staple of my reading in those formative years.
Just like Popular Science, I ceased Scientific American many, many moons ago. I used to LOVE Scientific American. Some of the articles were above my current understanding, so it pushed me to read and research. Once there was no more ‘science’ in Scientific American, so too did I stop sending them any $$$. It is amusing that Sci American, Nat Geo, etc will send offers to restart with drastically reduced prices. If they send a return envelope with the postage already paid, I cut up everything in the offer, all the pages, and mail it back. Someday, perhaps, they will get the message.
I would say it was more a case of, once it was no longer Science, it was no longer popular.
But hey, if there was anybody out there who loved being scolded about muh climate, then this news will sadden them.
“Sport’s Illustrated is next on the chopping block”
Oh No!! The last refuge of diseased swimsuit models.
When I was a kid many years ago, I visited my grandparent’s house in Pennsylvania. They had boxes of Popular Science and Popular mechanics from the 1930’s up until the war. They belonged to my great uncle who I never met, who was machine-gunned parachuting somewhere into France.
“I do still have issues 50 to 100 or so years old.”
I have a bound volume of Popular Science magazines from the 1890’s. There is an article in there about man’s contribution to the climate warming. I am not making this up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.