[lachlan_gray]

I found a heap of their magazines from the 60’s and 70’s in the recycling at my university, and boy are they a good read. I think one reason they used to be so good (speculating) was that the internet didn’t exist. It was a medium where you could regularly learn out about distant things like peculiar mountain goats or an arctic tribe and get a firsthand report of it. Now there’s no shortage of interesting things like that to read, so maybe it’s not a viable strategy for a print magazine.

[ghaff]

The internet didn't exist and travel, perhaps especially exotic/adventure travel, was a much more rarified thing--so National Geographic was this window into a world that the vast majority of people would never encounter anywhere else.

[chinchilla2020]

exotic/adventure travel is even more rare nowadays. The rise of social media has funneled most travelers towards a few high-infrastructure hotspots like Bali, Yellowstone, and Barcelona. Historically, travel was performed much more 'blind', rather than following the internet-registered locations and reviews.

[ghaff]

I don't know the effect in absolute terms but certainly there's less terra incognito from the perspective of Westerners than there was when the Wheelers founded Lonely Planet.

[indymike]

I think they lost their way when they made the foray into operating multiple TV channels. Suddenly, they went from slow, deep, content to having to have lots of content quickly all the time. I'd still be a subscriber, but the quality dropped significantly in the 00's.