I tend to think in the early days magazines were started to spread information around. A group of people got together, gathered information and produced a magazine. A small number of advertisers took care of the production and (small) staff costs. The mags didn't have much additional 'luggage'.

These days magazines carry a huge luggage in the form of a large company on top with a lot of people in it not actually contributing to the quality of the mag itself, but taking care of all the stuff around it like PR, distribution, advertising, account and subscriber-administration.
Mags are viewed as a source of income. Sharing information comes second to making profit.
In order to keep their profits (and bonuses?) up they sell more advertising space.

Having too much luggage wasn't that much of a problem in the 90's, but now with rising costs, a lousy econy AND the fact that the Internet is here to stay, these Big Luggage-mags are having a hard time.

Maybe it's time for them to loose most of that luggage and go back to what mags initially are ment for, provide and share information.