For a publication that built its business on the premise that Washington professionals would pay handsomely to know what was happening before everyone else did, Politico has been remarkably patient about asking anyone else to pay for anything at all.
That patience, it seems, has run its course.
The company is introducing Decoded, a technology policy franchise that will include a daily newsletter and podcast, according to Goli Sheikholeslami, the chief executive. The newsletter begins Oct. 5; the paywall arrives in the first quarter of 2027, which in subscription-product terms counts as leisurely.
The new product will draw on reporting from nearly 50 journalists stationed in Washington, Sacramento, London, and Brussels — a geographic spread that suggests Politico believes technology policy is now being made in roughly as many places as technology itself. Chris Cadelago, who will oversee the franchise as executive editor for global technology and California, will lead the team.
Subscribers to Politico Pro, the company's existing subscription service, which has quietly printed money for years by telling lobbyists and trade-association executives what they needed to know before breakfast, will receive Decoded at no additional cost. Everyone else will get a preview period, followed by an invitation to pay.
(One imagines the preview period will be just long enough for readers to become dependent.)
The launch represents Politico's first new subscription product since Pro was introduced more than a decade ago, a span during which the digital publishing industry has cycled through approximately seven business models and settled, grudgingly, on the oldest one: asking readers for money.
Decoded arrives at a moment when technology companies are simultaneously the subject of regulation, the target of antitrust enforcement, and the landlords of the platforms on which the news about all of this travels. Whether that creates enough anxiety to support another subscription remains to be seen, though anxiety has generally been a reliable revenue source.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Politico Finally Launches a Second Subscription"