The best thing, IMHO, about The New Yorker these days is Malcolm Gladwell’s science writing. Otherwise, it’s been sort of hit or miss. I still subscribe when they offer me a rate below about $22/year, figuring that I’d spend that much in any given year buying it at the newstand. After several cycles of letting my subscription lapse for several months and holding out until I get offered a year for $18.95 or so, they seem to have decided I’m not worth it.
The Economist is still my favorite magazine to not subscribe to. I love it, but I can’t justify it given how much of it goes unread every issue – I barely managed to keep ahead of the mailman with the next issue when I was single and my SO was overseas for a year during the 1992 presidential campaign. Married with two kids under age four, there’s just no way. I don’t necessarily agree with the editorial position, but at least it’s explicit and I know where they’re coming from, so I know how to read it. When I feel the need to know what’s going on in the world, however, I do still buy it.
The Atlantic Monthly has passed up Harper’s and The New Yorker as my general interest mag of choice these days. Now if someone brought back Wig Wag, I’d be a happy man.