> E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? Because the real economic cost of an article is likely a lot high

> E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? Because the real economic cost of an article is likely a lot higher than $0.25. The newsstand price of a magazine is always more expensive than what you can get it for in a subscriptio. Companies prefer recurring revenue over one-timers and their pricing reflects that. Apple claims to offer tons of publications in Apple News +, but they don't tell you that a) Apple News shows ads and b) the titles they carry still block off some articles and content as premium-member only. Anytime somebody offers a flat rate for something, you have to remember that the flat cost is simply what they offer to the customer, it's not reflective of what it costs them to supply. iTunes sold songs for $1 20 years ago, but for Apple the real game was using iTunes to get customers to stick around and make it easier to sell them their next iPod.