In the first issue of WIRED, published 25 years ago this year, founding editor Louis Rossetto declared that “in the age of information overload, THE ULTIMATE LUXURY IS MEANING AND CONTEXT.” (Caps his.) If anything, that simple observation rings even truer today. That’s why WIRED has always valued depth. We dig deep into our subjects, reveling in wonky engineering details that other publications skip. We think deep thoughts about the future. And we form deep relationships with our audience—connecting them to a community of ideas and encouraging them to think harder about the future they want to inhabit.
For most of our history our business model, primarily built on advertising, rewarded that depth. Advertisers are eager to connect with our sophisticated audience, and WIRED remains the best way to reach them. But in recent years, that industry has proven fickle and tumultuous, and a too-slender reed upon which to hang our entire business.
That’s why today we are launching a paywall—a business that rewards our connection to our audience and will help us keep WIRED a home for unique, surprising, challenging, and sophisticated journalism for the next quarter-century and beyond.
Careful readers may note here that, as the voice of the digital revolution, we have hewed to Stewart Brand’s famous notion that “information wants to be free,” a declaration that some have interpreted to mean that nobody should ever pay for digital content. But read the rest of Brand’s statement: “On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it is so valuable,” he told Steve Wozniak in 1984. “The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.” That tension persists today. Even as information has become cheap or free to distribute, we believe that quality information—built on great reporting, vivid writing, and illuminating insight—remains valuable.
By subscribing to WIRED, you can help us continue our legacy of fresh insights, deep reporting, stunning design, and beautiful writing. The details are here, but in a nutshell: If you read four articles in a month, you will be invited to subscribe to read further. If you subscribe, you not only get unlimited access to WIRED.com and a print subscription, you’ll also receive a free YubiKey—a crucial tool for protecting yourself online. You’ll get access to a digital edition of our magazine, delivered fresh to your tablet every month. And when you visit us online, we’ll take out the ads.
But the real benefit of your subscription is that you’ll ensure that we can continue producing great stories and content. To that end, we want to announce three new programs we’re launching with the paywall. First, we’re happy to introduce the all-new Backchannel—a home for our most ambitious digital long-form journalism. Our long features are routinely the most popular on our site, and that’s why we are building a special home for them—and doubling our investment in producing them.