Show of Hands: Who Pays For 7x7?

Who Pays For 7x7? Suckers, that's who.

A treatise on the quality of this magazine is perhaps best left for another day, and for other people to make. After all, what business do we, a ground-floor, citizen-based blog enterprise, have bashing our betters in the antique (i.e., published using "ink") media?

However, we will say this: were we ever to actually want to read 7x7, we would never pay for it. It's free everywhere. Free at the Farmer's Market (c'mon, Derrick -- we want to see what SFist in the Kitchen would do with this fresh find). Free at our local YMCA. And, most recently, free in our mailbox.

Yes, folks, it's evidently a magazine reduced to "junk mail" status. Right there with the Ikea and Victoria's Secret catalogues (the difference is we sometimes read the former and will look at the pictures in the latter -- neither of which we've done with 7x7).

So -- is the magazine boosting circulation numbers by giving a ton of product away, maybe in an effort to justify or raise advert rates? Or hoping that once people read it, they'll start subscribing? We could ask, but that would make us too much like legitimate media. We'd rather just ask you to take a poll.