Quote, unquote: Considering magazines as "lifestyle objects"

Of course it’s hard to draw comparisons, but if the proportion of magazine-buyers who don’t read their purchases is anything like the 50% of vinyl buyers who don’t play their records, then maybe that is something for magazine-makers to consider. It’s fair to say that many independent titles have become lifestyle objects. There is an achingly trendy concept store near where I live in Amsterdam, one of those confusing emporiums that seems to sell clothes, candles and antique watering cans. It stocks three indie magazines and I would bet that most of you would be able to name them.

-- Rob Alderson, writing in MagCulture