As much as I hate to say it (millenial), it's probably due to the age of millenials and genx now.
They should have pivoted a different way--more in line with the changing life stage of the readership.
My theory is that when Millennials were growing up there was still a strong ‘default culture’ that helped sustain a thriving counter-culture. One could move decisively between the two when bored/frazzled. Zoomers have grown up flailing around in a devolved soup of ideas. Everything’s edgy so nothing is.
I go to underground parties all the time and I actually don't see many people that seem younger than mid to late 20's.
Mostly late 20's early 30's millennials, and the crust punks of the 70's and 80's/
At the time I had the sense that they were burning money on very high quality (read: expensive) reporting in an effort to build up the brand, all while hoping to figure out how to make the financials work "later."
For some reason I had kind of assumed the strategy had succeeded, seeing as how they stuck around for so long. I guess in reality they just never figured out how to make it sustainable.
It was pretty strong the first few years and rapidly declined in quality for the last 5 or so.