Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also share the concern with an iOS-only model, but give him a break: it's just a 2 months proof-of-concept. He needs critical mass in order to make this sustainable in the long term - without having to resort to ads, sponsored reviews and all sorts of ways to keep the quality. The choice for iOS for the initial platform seems obvious: it's much easier to monetize quickly. And it's easy to add Kindle, Android, HTML5…
> I think that's exactly the right approach, and a real step forward. I disagree. I think, sales issues aside, that open standards like HTML5 offer enough to give a good reading experience on most devices. Where it doesn't, that's typically because the device doesn't support the format, rather than the converse. As for how monetizing this is going to work for Marco, I don't know. Maybe iOS-only is the only way he cou…
It doesn't matter if it's HTML5 or whatever. If they don't find a sustainable model, then the magazine will not exist and you won't have the content - open or otherwise.
Second: content trump format. But while the focus is on content, the format is equally pleasant, better than most other magazines that spend a good amount of energy trying to imitate their tree-based predecessors.
> Maybe iOS-only is the only way he could get that to work, and that's the right choice for him. > If that's true, I still think it's unfortunate.
To me the only unfortunate thing is for this experiment to fail. Marco is a great writer, and his proposal seems honest and has merit.