That’s why today we are launching a paywall—a business that rewards our connection to our audience and will help us keep WIRED a home for unique, surprising, challenging, and sophisticated journalism for the next quarter-century and beyond.

By subscribing to WIRED, you can help us continue our legacy of fresh insights, deep reporting, stunning design, and beautiful writing. The details are here, but in a nutshell: If you read four articles in a month, you will be invited to subscribe to read further. If you subscribe, you not only get unlimited access to WIRED.com and a print subscription, you’ll also receive a free YubiKey—a crucial tool for protecting yourself online. You’ll get access to a digital edition of our magazine, delivered fresh to your tablet every month. And when you visit us online, we’ll take out the ads.

But the real benefit of your subscription is that you’ll ensure that we can continue producing great stories and content. To that end, we want to announce three new programs we’re launching with the paywall. First, we’re happy to introduce the all-new Backchannel—a home for our most ambitious digital long-form journalism. Our long features are routinely the most popular on our site, and that’s why we are building a special home for them—and doubling our investment in producing them.

For a quarter-century, WIRED has watched as the internet has rewritten everything about journalism and media—who creates it, what we expect from it, and how we support it. And yet, at heart, Louis’ central observation in our launch issue is as true today as it was 25 years ago—when mere information is cheap and plentiful, context and meaning are more valuable than ever. The paywall refocuses our business around that simple truth.