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I love the design of the new Foreign Affairs website. They have this little thing where they use Flash to render the headlines of their articles. I realise we’re all supposed to hate Flash but it looks so nice. They’ve got just the right amount of line-spacing and even though articles are spread out across multiple pages, the advertising is tasteful enough that I don’t mind seeing it again.

In fact, I love the design of the new Foreign Affairs website so much I decided I’d subscribe to the magazine. They have a paywall in place and I was getting frustrated at not being able to read what sounded like the most interesting articles. Also, I don’t believe there’s some magical money-making machine that ensures good writing gets paid for. So I thought, you know what? I’ll do it. I’ll subscribe.

If you live in the U.S., a subscription to Foreign Affairs magazine costs US$32. If you live outside of North America you pay US$32 for a subscription and US$35 for delivery.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Printing is cheap these days and Australia is a long way from the United States. And US$67 is hardly the end of the world. But I don’t like paying for things I don’t need and I didn’t want the printed version of Foreign Affairs; I just wanted to be able to access the website. Surely something could be done. I thought my question was pretty straightforward:

Hi

I’m not sure who the right person to ask is. I’d like to subscribe to Foreign Affairs but I live in Australia.

The main reason that I want to subscribe is to have full access to the website. To subscribe with an Australian address will cost more in shipping than the cost of the subscription itself (currently US$35 v US$32).

Is it possible only to subscribe at the US price and simply not have the physical magazine shipped to me?

Cheers

Michael.

This was the response:

Ms. Camilleri,

We do not offer kindle subscription. Please contact Amazon.com for further assistance. If we can be of any other assistance, please let us know.

Thank you for subscribing to Foreign Affairs.

Sincerely,

Pete Stone Email Customer Service

Stellar job there, Pete. In three lines you managed to call me a girl, tell me to go and ask someone else for help subscribing to your magazine and then thank me for subscribing when my question was about how I could subscribe.

Still, I kept my cool:

Dear Pete

I’m not actually after a Kindle subscription; what I’d like to know is if there is some way to subscribe without having the magazine sent to Australia. I presume I could simply put a U.S. address in and send my issues to someone else but, in the interests of saving paper, I thought perhaps it would be possible to subscribe and simply have the magazine not sent.

Cheers

Michael.

The response:

Ms. Camilleri,

We are sorry, we do not offer digital subscriptions. If you wish to avail only a online subscription and no print version, please contact amazon.com.

Thank you for your interest in Foreign Affairs.

Sincerely, Scott Shelton Email Customer Service

Two things: (1) Seriously, when did Michael become a woman’s name? (2) What is it with you guys and Amazon?

I realise there’s a danger at extrapolating from personal experience. What happened to me is possibly a one-off. Certainly it’s not the cause of the decline in print media. But it’s hard not to see it as emblematic of a struggle for companies to adjust to the idea that people might want to pay for the content without the dead trees.