A nice site. Many of the articles are accessible for free by non-subscribers, and for the ones that are not, the service offers a couple of different options for how to purchase the article you need. You can sign up for a yearly subscription, or you can purchase just the article that you need for about $3. As the Economist is one of the best source for reliable metrics for just about anything (country indicators, GDP, crime statistics, etc.), this pay for what you need option is really helpful. In terms of site performance, I haven't had any trouble - www.economist.com (don't go to www.theeconomist.com or you you will just see a picture of Allen Greenspan's smiling face) loads quickly and is well laid out. One other feature that I like a lot is the Alerts - for example I can indicate that I'm interested in San Francisco and Internet, and whenever an article appears in the Economist on those topics, they send me an alert.

Well laid out and quick. One of the few places you can actually find solid information about what is really going on around the world. Most media tends to not be objective as they claim to be and although The Economist is not objective at least the information is a refreshing change from one sided information we get else-where.