I absolutely miss the Wired of the 1990's.
When it was a magazine, no THE magazine, to read about the intersection of culture and tech. In this day and age, I find it hard to pickup a copy of Wired at the airport because it has content for about 5 minutes.
One of my favs is still Monocle, but it doesn't have much tech. Unfortunately.
No kidding on 2005. I now only associate this magazine for mostly wannabe managers who want to read some entry-level article (likely while on an airplane), who go into their next monthly meeting spouting off what they passively read with little real understanding of the subject.
Around that time I bought two or three issues (of the italian edition) due to it being often cited. I wasn't thrilled at all.
It honestly seemed like it was written by some recently-graduated (so like a twenty-something) tech enthusiast. A lot of willingness to spend moneys on the latest gizmos, a lot of advertising, very little interesting pieces (and none of them went any deep on the topic).
I’m still pissed that they cheapened the cover material. Used to be that amazing thick rugged cover. Plus, I’m much less excited to read it in the last year or two than previous 20 years.
Not the parent, but Wired has been terrible for the past 15-20 years. Previous commenters are correct that the quality took a dive in the 2000's. The real glory days for the publication were the 1990s before the Internet was a household word and technology was more obscure.
I've started subscribing Wired in 2011 and I pretty much liked it for couple of years. For me it seems once Conde Nast purchased the magazine the quality has dropped.
Wired had an unsuccessful IPO attempt in 1996. Condé Nast bought the print magazine in 1998. Lycos owned the digital properties until 2006 when they were sold back to CN.
Wired’s willingness to cover quack ideas was part of the intrigue for me. Sure, flying cars, jetpacks, and underwater breathing aren’t near but it’s fun to see the progress we’ve made on those fronts every now and then.
OT but i find myself unimpressed by their news website. Arstechnica is a bit better. It seems to be enormously popular on HN is these a good reason for this?
Didn't Ars get bought by same corporate parent (Conde Naste) as Wired? While Ars hasn't sunk quite as quickly, its still not nearly as good as it was pre-acquisition for me.
It's popularity stems from its early significance; Ars is an old, old website by standards of peers like The Verge and it did used to have much more frequent high quality technical writing. Since Conde acquisition it's definitely veered more mainstream (exactly like Wired did too) IMO. I certainly don't think the original Ars crowd imagined they'd one day be a Conde Naste "brand".
arstechnica states that their parent is Wired. I suspected that their success on HN is mainly for historical reasons. It looks like even HN can fall behind the times a bit...
"Acquired in 2008 by Advance, the parent company of Condé Nast, Ars Technica has offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Today, Ars Technica operates as Condé Nast's only 100% digitally native editorial publication."
In my experience, arstechnica writers can include content that is genuine and not sensational. Not always but often. I skip the comments, too much noise there, but they do have a very engaged audience.