Today I cancelled my long-standing subscription to the German „Schach“ magazine and also decided not to renew my subscription to the „New in Chess“ magazine. Why? The move to the Forward Chess platform is a terrible imposition on anyone who is used to and loves the classic magazine layout.

Years or decades ago, I used to receive both magazines by post in print form. Once these magazines became available digitally, I switched over at some point. For reasons of space and environmental protection. And because it was simply more convenient to read entire volumes on an e-reader or tablet. As well as a web-based version where you could also interact, New in Chess provided a PDF. You could also download individual issues and save them to your device.

The long-established German chess magazine Schach has, thankfully, sent a PDF by email to subscribers who have been using only Apple’s iOS or macOS. This is because the iOS version of their own app was so abysmally programmed and buggy that I almost cancelled my subscription back then.

Both of those issues are now a thing of the past. Instead, you can now view diagrams with a magnifying glass and scroll endlessly through an article. I understand that publishers view their paying customers with general suspicion regarding possible illegal copies. Hopefully, the publishers now also realise that their already dwindling customer base is likely to be deserting them in droves, despite the content generally being of good quality.

It’s not just the layout now offered via Forward Chess that’s a ‘pain in the arse’. On top of that, under the current model, subscribers only acquire the right to read a magazine online; they no longer own it. If the platform ever disappears, who cares…

And, no, I won’t be going back to the print version. At most, I might buy an issue every now and then out of nostalgia from a well-stocked station bookshop.

[Update 8.7.26]: New in Chess is withdrawing its apps and informing readers that they can now read the old issues via https://newinchess.nl/magazinedigital/index.html. The PDF has disappeared from there. To make matters worse, you can’t even scroll to the end of the articles anymore. Scrolling stops at 59–81%. 16 Five years’ worth of NiC digital – dating from the framework change – down the drain!

[Update 10.7.26]: I must give some credit too. I’ve now reached a satisfactory agreement with the German magazine Schach.