The Economist

In the two thousands, media executives faced existential questions. The internet made copying instantaneous. How charge when thousands of free alternatives existed? Most publications dropped paywalls. The Economist reversed this. They raised subscription prices while competitors dropped theirs to zero. Willingness to pay correlates with audience quality, not audience size. Ten thousand paying readers generated more than one million free readers. Readers were executives, policymakers, investors with budgets. The Economist focused on premium subscribers, producing niche content. General interest drowns in competition. Specialized coverage becomes invaluable. Subscriber base aged up, incomes rose, prices rose. Correlation compounded over decades.