Fashionably Late

Can someone please tell me why it is that we subscribe to magazines? Because I thought it was in order to get the magazine BEFORE it hit the stores. But apparently this is no longer the case. For one thing, I have now sent subscriptions in for SHOP,Etc. no less than three times and I have yet to receive a single issue, a bill, or any acknowledgement whatsoever. Alternatively, I will occassionally buy a magazine and fill out a subscription card only to have them immediately send me the issue I just purchased! I do successfully subscribe to Lucky (and yes, I did end up with the issue I had just purchased), and that seems to be going well, but Vogue...there is a magazine that is fashionably LATE to my mailbox with regularity. I spotted the new issue Friday. Yes, FRIDAY of last week at a GROCERY store! Well, I think...surely it will come Saturday. No. Monday? Wrong. Uh huh...maybe today? Meanwhile I am fighting my urge to go buy the grocery store copy because I NEED something to do while I put off writing my final paper for "History and Theories of the Book."