https://www.ldsliving.com/church-to-offer-all-three-global-magazines-free-of-charge/s/11648#:~:text=In%20January%202021%2C%20the%20Church,'%20and%20the%20'Friend'.

you have to have a church account whatever that means.

reminds me of the ward magazine representative who tried to strong arm me into re-subscribing to the Ensign back in the late 90's. When I strongly declined, her frustrated reply: "well, you should be spanked"!

LOL. I was the mag rep in one of my BYU wards. I was very responsible and bullied everyone in the entire ward. Students didn't have any money. Looking back it was a bad thing to be doing. The darn magazines were all over campus. At least I didn't spank anyone. ;-)

Bet there were more than a few coeds that would have been happy to get a few good wacks

So now they actually cost what they are worth.

Still overpriced IMO.

Just what I was going to say.

Zero is still too expensive.

I must have been so out of it. Didn't know about church magazines. Never bought any. Don't recall if I've ever even seen one.

So the Mormon Church finally catches up with the JWs, who stopped charging for their literature 23 years ago.

I actually didn't even know that JWs used to charge (a very nominal amount).

I wonder if church magazines ever convince a person to convert.

Church Mags were more directed towards members than a recruitment tool. The "articles" in The Ensign assumed you knew what a Ward, Branch, or Stake was and knew what a Bishop was etc.

The Watchtower did not mention Elders, or CO, or Governing Body, without explaining what those things were.

I received the Ensign after my dad died until his subscription ran put at the end of that year. I was amazed at what drivel it preached. I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised.

I thought you could see a church article on their website without signing up. I get more than enough junk mail already.

I think this is a HUGE sign that all is not well in Zion.

Agreed.

The sad thing is there is absolutely nothing in those magazines that will attract people. The problems are far deeper than some glossy pablum can reach.

>> I think this is a HUGE sign that all is not well in Zion.

I feel the same. The church has so much difficulty with parting with money.

Their yearly “charitable giving” just took an exciting big jump!!

My mom kept renewing my subscription for a while after I left the church.

When I went inactive I started receiving the Ensign in my PO box. I don't know who signed me up for the subscription. It went straight into the recycle bin.

Even when I was TBM I didn't care for the Ensign. Reading the BoM was tedious enough. I associated magazines with fashion magazines and wasn't about to read the Ensign when Vogue was so much more interesting.

Reading the Ensign is like sitting through General Conference. The articles are like conference talks. It was bad enough sitting through conference twice a year but now all church talks and lessons are focused on the conference talks. No wonder the Mormon church is losing people. It's like one continuous boring General Conference.

The complete lack of fore sight was glaring…even Oprah knows puppies on the cover works wonders….course I’d peg big Tom as a cat guy….who doesn’t like kittens and puppies…big fluffy kittens to go with the fluff inside

You save a ton of money going digital. Paper and shipping are very expensive now. The church has become a website.

Things die generationally. The young people are leaving and I hear lots of complaining from older Mormons how impersonal the church has become.

At the end of the day the LDS Church will become a holding company making most its money from investments. The actual church part will be a failure losing membership and the biggest white elephant will be hundreds of temples nobody uses.