And it baffles me because, having read it for 20+ years and gone back for research to read plenty of articles from further back... I just don't see it at all.
It's the same market-based, socially progressive, pragmatic international strongly opinionated journalism it's always been. Sometimes I think the way it characterizes something is missing part of the full picture, but it's always been that way. Journalists are fallible humans, they aren't gods, and it's not like there was some mythical past where they always got things right.
I can totally understand people not enjoying it as much as they grow older, simply because you come to mistrust journalism more in general, or shift in your ideological viewpoint so it becomes less agreeable. Readers change.
But I'm getting tired of this trope that it's the Economist that's been changing, that's been getting worse. It just doesn't make any sense. It's the same journalism it's always been. For every article you take issue with, I'm sure you'd find just as many from 20 or 30 years ago.
I suppose it's just part of a general narrative of declinism, how everything used to be so much better and the world is crumbling. But in this case, I just don't see it. You might not like the magazine anymore and that's fine, but I think there's a good chance it's you who has changed, not the magazine.