Is Maghound the future? And do we want to go there?

I don't like to rain on the innovation parade, but an article in the National Post hymning the wonders of Time Inc.'s new Maghound single copy service (see previous posts) suggests that this is an unalloyed good thing and that the sooner it begins servicing Canadians, the better.

Masthead editor Marco Ursi is quoted saying:

You don't get as much revenue selling copies on Maghound, but attracting American eyeballs would be a real incentive for publishers here. A singular Time Inc. title like People is bigger than the entire Canadian magazine industry."

Geist editor Stephen Osborne is quoted as saying:

"There's a hell of a good audience for us in the States.If we could use their distribution stream, I would think we could double in size."

My question is how a Canadian publisher could manage meeting the demands of such a service.

For one thing, we're not talking about digital editions here but hard copies. With readers mixing and matching, often on a monthly basis, how would press runs be determined?

And if readers are buying single copies at a huge discount in the first place and Maghound presumably passes on only a small part of the price, is this worth diverting current single copy buyers from newsstands?

Is there any evidence that the total number of single copy sales will increase? And is there any fear that we will convert some current paid subscribers into single copy buyers? Just asking.