ZBM RUINED The Economist for Good
I had subscribed to The Economist for almost 21 years but enough is enough: this tabloid is no better than any other. Everything is an editorial and a misrepresentation of objective facts, bent and misshapen to fit a selected ideology.
Good luck canceling: I had to call three times to finally speak to someone after having been put on hold for over an hour on each occasion. An absolutely disgraceful and unethical process designed to make one quit the phone call rather than the newspaper. And no, even in 2026 there is no option to cancel except via phone.
Good luck canceling: I had to call three times to finally speak to someone after having been put on hold for over an hour on each occasion. An absolutely disgraceful and unethical process designed to make one quit the phone call rather than the newspaper. And no, even in 2026 there is no option to cancel except via phone.
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Brilliant magazine , brilliant app.
The Economist has always been my source of news, business, politics and economics. The app has made it far easier to read articles and the AI narrated ones are great, no matter what some people say. Great magazine, brilliant app. Well done!
Intrusive video ads
Why are there so many intrusive video ads when I’m paying for such an expensive subscription?? It really detracts from the articles. I regret paying for an annual subscription as I can’t cancel it immediately
Works on my iPad
I found the Economist app consistently frustrating. In the past sometimes it just stopped working. Then stopped working on my iPad and would not update on the iPad. And now that the price of the Print edition is way too high and I change the digital I cannot read it on my device. Disappointing.Journalist bemoan the demise of journalism but he really is not an innovative industry
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Not as good as it used to be
Docking two stars: Viewing weekly edition no longer works well without reliable internet connection. Can’t rotate into landscape mode. Too easy to leave app streaming audio when unintended.
audio queue
was it just me or did you take away the function to edit the audio queue? now i can only listen to ALL the weekly articles in YOUR order?
oh i found a workaround. you have to go to each track and press the three dots and add to queue. but now there’s no way to add all tracks in a section together to the queue.
i don’t understand: why did you change it? and it’s now more cumbersome than before.
AAAND all audio tracks are now AI narrated with dubious inflections and pauses. do you really hate the audio feature so much? to many people, this is where the economist stands out: human narrated articles that we can listen to while driving and doing brainless work. if you kill it, i might as well switch to WSJ that comes free from my university.
oh i found a workaround. you have to go to each track and press the three dots and add to queue. but now there’s no way to add all tracks in a section together to the queue.
i don’t understand: why did you change it? and it’s now more cumbersome than before.
AAAND all audio tracks are now AI narrated with dubious inflections and pauses. do you really hate the audio feature so much? to many people, this is where the economist stands out: human narrated articles that we can listen to while driving and doing brainless work. if you kill it, i might as well switch to WSJ that comes free from my university.
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App unusable
Every time I open the app, I am asked to renew. The only option is to click on the link it takes you to the website to renew and I have for three years.
But still when I go back to the app, the pop-up comes and I cannot do anything!!!
But still when I go back to the app, the pop-up comes and I cannot do anything!!!
Audio plays out of order
When the audio version of a story is finished, the app SHOULD play the next story in the issue. Indeed, this is what the app used to do. Now, when a story is finished, it starts playing whatever story you were in the middle of the last time you opened the app. So if I’m listening to a story in the United States section, it then jumps to the middle (not even the beginning) of a story in the Britain section. This is because that’s the story I was listening to the last time I used the app. This bug makes it impossible to listen to the articles in order, which is exactly what I want to do.
I almost exclusively consume the audio version. If this bug isn’t fixed, I will be forced to cancel my subscription.
I almost exclusively consume the audio version. If this bug isn’t fixed, I will be forced to cancel my subscription.
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Account renewal request renders useless
I thought this app was just fine, especially after the improvement where I could sync my saved stories across different devices
But this morning, I get a notification pop-up to renew and I do but it still persists.
After an hour of troubleshooting with support, I basically cannot use the app because the moment I open it, I get the renewal pop-up again even though I’ve paid for three years subscription!
But this morning, I get a notification pop-up to renew and I do but it still persists.
After an hour of troubleshooting with support, I basically cannot use the app because the moment I open it, I get the renewal pop-up again even though I’ve paid for three years subscription!
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Poor on the basics
Great on skimming headlines, poor on actually letting you carry on reading what you were reading before. Another commenter made this same point - basic state preservation is absent so if you don’t finish what you were reading before leaving the app, you’ll be dumped back on the Home Screen and have to navigate all the way back to the article you were reading. If this is a briefing from a few weeks back, this will be a pain. This is basic functionality in a news reading app and I am astonished it’s missing. Nearly £400 a year subscription and you can’t just pick up where you left off? Makes the app much less useful for me. Also, auto downloading new issues would be nice.
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Too many adverts: subscription cancelled.
Like so many others have noted, the adverts have become intrusive on the app. Subscription cancelled.
AI narration is bad
The AI narration is irritatingly bad, mispronouncing too many words
Audio totally ruined
Audio playback has been ruined with the recent update. Before, you could start playback at any article and it would play it and all following articles in sequence. Now it plays one article and stops. If there is a queue, it will instead jump to the next article in the queue. And there is no way to delete the queue. Audio playback is impossible for me to use.
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Basic State Preservation
I’ve been a loyal, paying subscriber for years. I have no complaint about the journalism but the iPad app has had, for as long as I have subscribed to it, a critical engineering flaw that degrades the daily reading experience: it loses my place constantly.
If I click away from the app even briefly to check an email or take a note and return, the app reboots and dumps me straight back to the Home page. My active article, scroll position, and reading progress are completely lost.
It appears recent updates have prioritized adding new feeds, audio, and media formats, which to be honest are of limited interest to me, over basic core stability. Feature expansion is an understandable marketing focus but not when basic state preservation is missing.
Please ask your engineering team to fix background state preservation in the next software update so subscribers don't have to hunt down their article every time they multitask on iPadOS.
Largely drafted on AI but heartfelt.
If I click away from the app even briefly to check an email or take a note and return, the app reboots and dumps me straight back to the Home page. My active article, scroll position, and reading progress are completely lost.
It appears recent updates have prioritized adding new feeds, audio, and media formats, which to be honest are of limited interest to me, over basic core stability. Feature expansion is an understandable marketing focus but not when basic state preservation is missing.
Please ask your engineering team to fix background state preservation in the next software update so subscribers don't have to hunt down their article every time they multitask on iPadOS.
Largely drafted on AI but heartfelt.
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Latest update has broken the app
Now crashes on starting, even after deleting and reinstalling.
Worked fine until recently
I've been using the app for a while and while it has been buggy at times, it mostly worked ok. However as of the last couple of days, it's been crashing every time I try to open it, updating my iOS version did not help. I suspect the latest version is broken, if by chance any Economist app devs read this, please fix your app.
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Biased
I’m a political atheist, and I can’t stand that most media is biased towards one side instead of presenting both sides as part of the same problem.
In the case of The Economist, the left-wing bias is blatant. Bring back journalism, please.
In the case of The Economist, the left-wing bias is blatant. Bring back journalism, please.
No longer runs on iOS16
…which is the most recent OS that runs on my device. Why should I have to buy a new iPad to read The Economist? I now have a paid subscription for content I can no longer access. Boo.
Privacy screen is broken
On both iOS and Android my Economist app stops at the privacy screen. However, when I choose to manage privacy the toggle control does not render
[Update] And after I described the issue here, the Economist wanted me repeat the exercise and file a bug report — instead of creating a bug report and letting me just add any required details to it.
I pay the Economist, they don’t pay me.
[Update] And after I described the issue here, the Economist wanted me repeat the exercise and file a bug report — instead of creating a bug report and letting me just add any required details to it.
I pay the Economist, they don’t pay me.
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Economist app is appalling bad
Every time I want to read the Economist on my phone, I am prevented from doing so by the app. Every time it tells me I need to update the app and I press the update now button it puts me onto the update app page, but when I press the open button on that page it returns me to the update now page, and so on ad infinitum. Is it possible to fix this?
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