Why can't magazines get the Web?

But what happens when the core product is no longer profitable, and you haven't built a bridge to a new medium?

"Then you get to where the music industry is," says another former Condé Nast editor. "They just don't know what to do. All of the rules have been thrown out. You have billion-dollar companies trying to figure out a model in a free fall."

It's heartbreaking, in a way. Condé Nast's Portfolio.com says that it was attracting 3 million unique visitors a month. If so, there are plenty of companies that could make a handsome business out of that, but Condé Nast evidently believes that it cannot—or is simply disinclined to do so, at the expense of many jobs and missed opportunities.

It must be tempting to look the other way and hope for the best. After all, nearly every person consulted for this article said that it's too early to sound the death knell for the industry, that magazines will always be around.

Then again, that's what people thought about Lehman Bros.