This is a piece of medium-form journalism in the Economist, a generally well-respected outlet. The purpose is not to directly funnel as much raw news into your

This is a piece of medium-form journalism in the Economist, a generally well-respected outlet. The purpose is not to directly funnel as much raw news into your brain as possible, but to provide a little bit of context around an issue being discussed. This quote you cited is directly relevant and the reason for mentioning it is obvious in the literal next sentence. There are lots of nonsense filler articles out there on the internet; this is not one of them.