It was a great magazine. Unfortunately I stopped subcribing and haven't picked up an issue in over two years. When they sent the printing of the mag to China, who has some of the worst human rights and piss poor treatment of its workers. What happened to the whole theme of being an Alpinist? Freedom.
While I doubt this is the cause of the demise, I can only hope it helped in a little way. To bad a good mag is gone, glad it happened to the people who controlled it.

re: China....

Would people have paid 2x the price to have Alpinist printed somewhere other than China? Probably not...

So what should a "responsible" business do in this case? Be "responsible", print in the U.S. and die? Or satisfy the price sensitivity of their customer and print in China?

It's easy to attack a business for not following the most "responsible" practices... but what if your customers don't follow you down the noble road- what choice should a business make?

Why is everything made in China? Because of the U.S. consumers insatiable demand for goods and services at the lowest price possible. Collectively, we all vote for China everyday with our purchases in the stores.

Don't forget about Black Diamond too! I suppose you don't climb on their cams either :)

I'm not saying I agree with the "China choice", but I am saying I believe these types of decisions are, unfortunately, lose/lose for a business.

Nope, no BD gear anymore either. They saved 15% by moving the printing from Canada to China. My printing company offered to price it here for them, we would have priced matched the China pricing. Never a response from the editor/publisher at the time.
Yes, I would have paid the 15% percent increase to know that they printed in a free nation.
Where do you draw the line against these companies? Anywhere you can is my answer. Did it help the mag servive in the long run? Nope.
I look at manufacturing tags, I try hard not to purchase a product outsourced to China and similar countries. Unfortunately it's not that easy.
People cry out that we are a global community, one village, then everyone act like one resposible community. Paying workers 0.80 an hour, working them 6 days for 12 hours a day. Living in dorms and only allowed to go home to your family for one day a week. Miss a day because you are and sick and you are replaced. Would you keep buying the Alpinist knowing it was manufactured in this type of a facility? That's why I didn't. One of the easier choices.

Does this mean I'll be reimbursed for my subscription monies?
Or someone buys it and starts up the mag again?

Neither really, it wouldn't have made me any money. It saved me money by canceling my subscribtion. It was an offer to help keep it produced in a free country.

I did get a couple of notices to renew in the past few weeks. Since it has been determined by our own forum consensus debates that all climbers owe money to red hat anyway for the privilege of receiving the magazine, I was thinking of processing another year, because a billion dollars just isn't enough.