20 is a lot for some people, but it’s like 5/6 beers most places. Sure in the poorest parts of the country this could make or break, but the list of places where people could afford it is much longer than SV, Boston, NYC.

What about suburban DC? Dallas? Houston? Denver? Salt Lake City? Chicago?

Not sure if your last sentence was intended to be ironic, but there’s nowhere you can fly that’s less than an Economist subscription

A subscription is $209. Allegiant (and many other budget airlines) often have $40-50 round trip airfares.

to be fair anywhere you’re going for $50 is probably close enough that it’s not exactly exotic.

Looking at allegiant’s site right now the only thing I could find for that price is a flight from Provo to Vegas

I'm glad I'm not the only one who measures money by drinks. I say "cocktails" like "I bet 4 cocktails on the Browns" but sometimes it's beer too.

$20 around SF here is less than a couple cocktails.

I watched a movie today and ended up ordering pop corn + soda + water. 1 pop corn, 1 soda, 1 water freaking bottle (250ml). They charged me $30 + tips.

I think National Geographic (which I'm a subscriber) can charge 10x more without losing 90% of it's audience. It's the price to pay to receive good articles at your home and it's definitely worth tons more than drinking and eating junk in the dark.

This is just silly.

I live in the Midwest. Even when I was living paycheck to paycheck in rural Minnesota, $20 per year was never a lot of money.

> Personally, I'd rather fly somewhere than see photos.

For the $200 per year I pay for The Economist I could maybe get to Chicago if I got a really good deal.

It's $20 a year, not $20/issue. That's $1.67 a month.

Every dollar counts when you're impoverished, but I don't think National Geographic is making or breaking it based on a demographic that makes purchasing decisions at that margin.

> I don't think NatGeo would be anywhere close to 1.8M with higher prices.

Lots of it must be schools and doctor and dentist offices.

Lots of people like both. Some people use the photos to help decide where they'd like to fly.

$20 is a meal for 2 or 3 at McDonalds. Update your priors

Nonsense. $20 a year for 12 issues of a magazine is absolutely nothing. Most lower income families probably spend more than that on two meals a day. Don’t cheapen the sympathy people have for the poor.

How are you talking about $20/yr sub being expensive while also comparing that subscription with flying out to various locales?

I don’t know where you’re finding such cheap flights

Over 34% of American households make over 100k per year. That's hardly "rarified air". It's more people than voted for Trump.