Padding out the final issue with lots of old reviews from early issues was a cheap way of getting one last issue out.
It used to be very informative and entertaining, but sadly has been going downhill for a while, with increasingly niche content with very narrow appeal.
I ditched (k)Ubuntu when they started forcing snaps on users - apart from the slow cold start time for Firefox, it broke Firefox's Plasma desktop integration.
Now using Manjaro with Plasma on Wayland and very happy with it.
If that magazine sells advertising (and I guess it does) then getting you to subscribe, even for free, means they have certified circulation figures to base ad sales on.