The argument isn’t that they don’t exist or are not published, it’s that they are not published widely.
Given that the circulation for Linuxformat was just 19,000 in 2014, it seems that that number backs up the position that you wouldn’t find this at a street level vendor.
Street level magazine kiosks sell magazines with up to date Linux kernel CD roms? That’s a lie. I’ve literally never seen that anywhere in Europe in the last decade. You might be able to find them in specialist shops or larger supermarkets, as you can in the UK, but street level kiosks? Get real.
I'm in france, I regularly buy one of those when I take the train lol.
We have quite a bit of choice and they all have recent-ish issues: https://www.journaux.fr/linux_informatique_1_0_130.html and you can find at least a couple of them in most kiosks ; at least Linux Identity always comes with a physical disk
And you don't have any friends & family that regularly come for help ?
When I built my current PC, I didn't bother with a 3.5" floppy drive, but I still had to get an USB one a couple of years ago when an acquaintance showed up needing to read some files from them...
In certain environments i have extensively worked in, the machines on which one builds are only allowed internet access on an ip:port basis after months long process involving dozens of people in multiple teams.
Many people download once, use constantly and on many machines.
My dev PC was never online since it was put together, all patching and updating was performed offline. All builds were bit-to-bit reproducible.