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Prices for anything don't have to be justified. The market decides them. It turns out that people really want to pay those publishers, so they can charge high f

Prices for anything don't have to be justified. The market decides them. It turns out that people really want to pay those publishers, so they can charge high fees. It also turns out scientists really want to publish their work in those closed-access journals. Whatever attracts them to do that is what justifies the high prices. What attracts them? Universities use them as a proxy to judge job applicants. Blame universities for using such an expensive "interview" process that permanently shafts much of the worlds scientific knowledge as a side effect.

Brotkrumen 11y ago
Ah, I cant criticise a marketstructure that is coinincidental for flaws because there are prices. I should criticise one market participant over another due to reasons. Got it. Scientific journals used to haven an important role in distributing and coordinating scientific work. A large part of that reason is gone in the age of near instantaneous and free distribution. The coordination of the process could be done cheaply and pay for a bunch more PhDs instead of a useless middleman.
wolfgke 11y ago
> Prices for anything don't have to be justified. The market decides them. It turns out that people really want to pay those publishers, so they can charge high fees. The market price is - say 30 $, if you want to get a legal copy - about 0 $, if you can accept the moral and legal dilemma Let the market decide... --- Seriously, because of the copyright laws the market is strongly skewed. I really can't understand how one can believe in free markets and copyright at the same time.
arbitrage 11y ago
The market is being unfairly controlled by oligopolists, if not straight out monopolists in many areas. This is not free market doctrine. This is econ 101 on how to subvert the free market.
- refurb 11y ago
  How is it a monopoly situation? There are multiple journals out there where scientists can publish their work. They could also start their own journal (open-access if they like) without many barriers.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    This is a two-sided market, where the publishers are the middlemen between scientists publishing their results and readers of the papers. You argue that the side scientists - publisher is a free market. I consider this as dubious because of, say, impact factors, but for the sake of argumentation, I'll accept it for now. But the really interesting side of the market is not scientist - publisher, but publisher - reader (this is what the original article is all about). And this is part of the two-sided market clearly is a monopoly, since there is no competition between publishers for a given paper, but there is only one publisher that is allowed to sell access to a paper (thanks to the copyright laws). TLDR: Thanks to the copyright laws one side of the two-sided market is a monopoly.
    - refurb 11y ago
      By that same argument, the computer market is a one-sided monopoly as well. Apple and Apple alone produces and sells Apple computers.
      - kragen 11y ago
        You may want to look up "two-sided market".
kragen 11y ago
I wasn't complaining about page fees, which are indeed subject to the laws of the market. I was complaining about fees charged for getting copies of the papers, which are governed by government-granted monopolies on producing copies of each paper, known as "copyrights". Those fees are not subject to the laws of supply and demand; the publisher can set them as high or low as it wishes, because you cannot simply go to a different publisher to get the paper if you think the price is too high. Consequently, the First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics does not apply, or even come close. The yearly expenses for arXiv https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/127116484/arXiv+Business+Model.pdf https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/12711648... are about US$780k. This supports http://arxiv.org/stats/get_monthly_downloads http://arxiv.org/stats/get_monthly_downloads about 11 million copies of papers produced per month, or 132 million per year, for a cost of US$0.006 per paper. These are the same kinds of papers Elsevier tries to charge you US$30 for. When two different providers of an identical service are charging you amounts that vary by a factor of 5000, you can see that the market is failing to promote public welfare, and so markets are not a good way to organize that part of society.

Brotkrumen 11y ago

Ah, I cant criticise a marketstructure that is coinincidental for flaws because there are prices. I should criticise one market participant over another due to reasons. Got it. Scientific journals used to haven an important role in distributing and coordinating scientific work. A large part of that reason is gone in the age of near instantaneous and free distribution. The coordination of the process could be done cheaply and pay for a bunch more PhDs instead of a useless middleman.

wolfgke 11y ago

> Prices for anything don't have to be justified. The market decides them. It turns out that people really want to pay those publishers, so they can charge high fees. The market price is - say 30 $, if you want to get a legal copy - about 0 $, if you can accept the moral and legal dilemma Let the market decide... --- Seriously, because of the copyright laws the market is strongly skewed. I really can't understand how one can believe in free markets and copyright at the same time.

arbitrage 11y ago

The market is being unfairly controlled by oligopolists, if not straight out monopolists in many areas. This is not free market doctrine. This is econ 101 on how to subvert the free market.

refurb 11y ago
How is it a monopoly situation? There are multiple journals out there where scientists can publish their work. They could also start their own journal (open-access if they like) without many barriers.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  This is a two-sided market, where the publishers are the middlemen between scientists publishing their results and readers of the papers. You argue that the side scientists - publisher is a free market. I consider this as dubious because of, say, impact factors, but for the sake of argumentation, I'll accept it for now. But the really interesting side of the market is not scientist - publisher, but publisher - reader (this is what the original article is all about). And this is part of the two-sided market clearly is a monopoly, since there is no competition between publishers for a given paper, but there is only one publisher that is allowed to sell access to a paper (thanks to the copyright laws). TLDR: Thanks to the copyright laws one side of the two-sided market is a monopoly.
  - refurb 11y ago
    By that same argument, the computer market is a one-sided monopoly as well. Apple and Apple alone produces and sells Apple computers.
    - kragen 11y ago
      You may want to look up "two-sided market".

kragen 11y ago

I wasn't complaining about page fees, which are indeed subject to the laws of the market. I was complaining about fees charged for getting copies of the papers, which are governed by government-granted monopolies on producing copies of each paper, known as "copyrights". Those fees are not subject to the laws of supply and demand; the publisher can set them as high or low as it wishes, because you cannot simply go to a different publisher to get the paper if you think the price is too high. Consequently, the First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics does not apply, or even come close. The yearly expenses for arXiv https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/127116484/arXiv+Business+Model.pdf https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/12711648... are about US$780k. This supports http://arxiv.org/stats/get_monthly_downloads http://arxiv.org/stats/get_monthly_downloads about 11 million copies of papers produced per month, or 132 million per year, for a cost of US$0.006 per paper. These are the same kinds of papers Elsevier tries to charge you US$30 for. When two different providers of an identical service are charging you amounts that vary by a factor of 5000, you can see that the market is failing to promote public welfare, and so markets are not a good way to organize that part of society.