This has been true for a lot of publications I used to like to read. Wired, Time, Sports Illustrated all are much, much worse today than I remember them being 20 years ago. I don’t know if that’s me or a genuine change in their quality.
The result is a long slow decline which is profitable until you’re dying and can’t climb back out. This is, I am sure, an explicit strategy of some. The whole business model of taking something good and lowering quality while relying on the good will from the past until it’s all out and you’re bankrupt… except you’ve been doing whatever you could to extract profit from the whole process and just leaving the business bankrupt.