Most editors have little understanding of how to attract and keep readers.
Editors could create the papers they wanted and the readers be damned. I would add that many still act in the same way. If few publishers use research to discover the needs and desires of their community, in spite of a lot of rhetoric and lip-service not many of them are as close to their readers and their community as they would like to think. There is also a noticeable lack of strategies for reacting to the needs and desires of readers which have been identified. Some editors do make an effort.