Comment by dredmorbius

True.

But there's the approach the Economist takes. For many decades, it's relied on a three-legged revenue model: subscriptions, advertising, and bespoke consulting and research through the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). My understanding is that revenues are split roughly evenly amongst these, and that they tend to even out cash-flow throughout economic cycles (advertising is famously pro-cyclical, subscriptions and analysis somewhat less so).

To that extent, the graphs and maps the Economist actually does include in its articles (as well as many of its "special reports") are both teasers and loss-leader marketing for EIU services. I believe that many of the special reports arise out of EIU research.

<https://www.eiu.com/n/>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Intelligence_Unit>