We doubt many will weep for the end of excess at the world's largest magazine company. But Jesse Oxfeld offers a handy history of the decline and fall of magazine perks.

This has been a long time coming. When I got to Time Inc. in 1999, people were still mourning the drink carts of yore. When Time Inc. threw a launch party for a now-forgotten tech magazine I worked at in 2000, they rented out a baseball stadium. When it shut down seven years later, we ate chips and guacamole.

What value did Time Inc.'s managers once see in lavish expense accounts that today's beancounters miss? Fun, mostly. Workers might lose their weekends to deadlines, but the company-paid lunches and parties made up for it.

The problem is that perks alone don't make work fun. Oh, they help, believe me — but when perks come without a feeling that the business is winning, they curdle into entitlement, and become joyless. Look at Yahoo: All the fun in the world can't help them beat Google. Time Inc.-ers now complain that there's no free Snapple. It's an easier thing to focus on than the looming death of the magazine business.