In the first years of Internet, I also was among those who thought or feared that the traditional journals could disappear soon, replaced by the more comfortable and richer offer of a newspaper on-line with their coloured pictures, many links, archives with previous articles on the same topic, even short videos and many other optional features, all things that can be read at home sitting down in front of a PC.

Moreover, on-line journals are continually updated in real time and it's not anymore necessary to wait until tomorrow to read the news relative to today.

Instead, newspapers had overcome their possible crisis just getting into the Web, so that we can today found the web-site of every journal we want, giving information services that are complementary to the "on-paper" version, that shouldn't disappear in the preferences of readers because it can be read easily when you can't or don't want to use your PC.

So, people keeps on buying the journal on-paper because this can be read also when you're not at home or in an office, but also on airplane, on bus or train, or on a seat in a park or on the beach, without carrying with you the heavy, delicate and battery-limited laptop PC; on the other hand, it's also possible to pay a subscription to the same journal on-line to read the same text of the on-paper version or also a free summarized version (what I always do to save money because this is equally detailed and complete, at least, for the newspaper I like better).

What I like of a newspaper on the Web is that, by means of the links to related sites, it becomes a starting point to navigate further on the Web about a certain argument. Moreover, an interesting article can be printed or saved in my PC or sent and made circulate as an e-mail to my friends.

Surely, the editor companies of the various newspapers will not risk to disappear for a possible decline of journals on paper, totally abandoned by readers, all converted to the on-line versions; they would continue to sell their journals on-line and on-paper as complementary versions.
However, I wouldn't be so unhappy if on-paper journals disappeared because this would allow to save paper and trees for its production, with a little reduction of wasted paper too.

Instead, I personally think newspapers and magazines will continue to be bought in newspaper kiosks still for a long time because the use of buying them every morning and putting it inside the bag is still deeply rooted in people, especially in more aged people, more traditionalist in the average and less dependent on computers.

Learn more about this author, Aldo Bonincontro.
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