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Yeah, that's part of it as well. Most people these days don't want to read long features in magazines, but just get quick blurbs to stay informed. Especially younger generations like mine and below (I'm 31) that grew up getting most of our news and information from the internet.
So what Magazines have to do is sell the value of longer features etc.--Newsweek has tried this with the format change they did last year to focus less on news recap and more on features. But who knows how much success that can have, especially among the younger crowd.
I enjoy a well written article, but at the end of the day I just want news/information in as easily digestible format as possible so I can spend the bulk of my time on work, social life and hobbies.
And like many, Newsweek still puts every article up for free on their website, so I didn't bother renewing my subscription even though I really liked the format change--I'm too busy/not interested enough to read every issue anyway. And that's gotten me and likely many others used to getting the content for free and most will probably be unlikely to pay for it in the future.
So magazines and newspapers really shot themselves in the feet by giving their content away for free for so long as it's hard to change gears and get people to pay for something they're used to getting for free.
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