You are making the wrong assumption.
You incorrectly assume:
Strong tech industry = strong tech magazines
In reality:
Strong magazine industry = strong tech magazines
You see this phenomenon all over Europe (and Japan), not just in the
UK. You'll find magazines that cover nearly everything, no matter how
niche the market, in great detail, with the vast majority of them
better than any similar magazine in the USA.
A stronger, more consolidated industry, standards over control, also
means fewer independent and emergent alternatives. The magazines
always were after their own interests first -- higher prices biased in
silent dismissal of what it wouldn't of course first promote. It only
got glossier. In America computer magazines initially were Ziff Davis
Publishing, not that they still aren't, but all those same aspects
changed and hardened to further consolidate what members of the
Department of Defense bought out from whatever vestige remained of
Ziff Davis and a wider syllabus.
Only a fool, in my estimation, wouldn't consider the Internet in a
premier advisory capacity when researching technology for independent
means and potential alternatives. The so-called magazine interests
are precisely an excellent departure point for back testing validity.
They're not transparent enough to rise above it all. . .mainline
product receptivity, in so many statistical abstracts, probably being
just fine and dandy when one needn't give a shit about being bothered
with wiping one's ass with other than money, I'm only saying I
personally wouldn't rule out time and effort it may take to find out
how the other half make do and actually live.
Take for example, once, I used to wonder why prices stayed
consistent. Why when I wait, can't I always have a lower price on
extant products as newer technological improvements supplant
mainstream trends and consumption. What I found is they were shipping
out, on bulk freighters, the products I was interested in, to a South
American consumer market lined-up in appreciative droves, in turn to
stick me with only higher priced production runs. No choice, pal.
