Website publisher Ben Edwards, in the release: “Our intention is to continue to develop intelligent discussion as a free, advertising-supported experience, but to charge for the weekly magazine online.”

“Through ‘This week’s print edition’, we offer readers an online experience of reading the magazine. We consider this to be a premium reading experience and plan to develop the online edition of our magazine for our most loyal and engaged readers: subscribers.

“We will continue to encourage both subscribers and non-subscribers to participate in the extraordinary discussions we host on http://www.economist.com, Facebook and elsewhere, catalysed by our breaking news commentary, our blogs and audio-visual content, and by our award-winning debates.”

The problem with this approach, however, is that those readers who value reading journals in print do so more than reading replicas of the same printed edition on a screen.

The same textual content from inside the magazine remains freely accessible on the website, albeit without the same layout treatment given to the dead tree.

Economist.com’s annual sub costs $79. The title had room to charge more. July-to-December mag sales rose rose 6.8 percent to 1.39 million copies and operating profits were 26 percent up to £56 million on 17 percent better revenue of £313 million.