Simple reason and the same reason why very rarely a magazine will be published online. For starters a magazine comes in the mail it's almost guaranteed to be picked up and read. If not read then at least browsed from cover to cover. Advertisers know this and this is why they spend a lot more to advertise in magazines then it costs to advertise on the web, respectfully.

Plus the fact you have potential for having magazine to go into the hands of more then just the people receiving them. They have the potential to go into barber shops, hobby shops, boy scouts and if we as members helped the MA, to put them into as many channels as possible, the potential is unlimited. Other orgs that I belong too really press members to pass their magazines on. I believe the AMA tries as hard as they can as well.

Plus the fact it's much easier to read articles in print for most people, especially seniors. And just to have the convience to read the magazine any place and time. Print is getting beat up in a lot of sectors in advertising. But it will never just go away. Paper is a hard good, it has value to members, advertsiers and the residual readers. There is a time and place for everything they say, well it's not time to just yank MA, yet. But don't think you could just drop those editors, whose going to write and edit the online versions if they made the switch?

So basically in a nutshell if you think it's that easy for MA to go into an online only version, they would have already done it and so would every other magazine. Perhaps it will happen one day but it won't happen until there is a chain reaction. MA is not the burden to the AMA like some believe, in restrospect it's really the only thing you can count on for your $58.