> so the publisher can recoup its costs. Given that peers review a paper for free and it costs fractions of a penny to host a pdf, why should we care about th

> so the publisher can recoup its costs. Given that peers review a paper for free and it costs fractions of a penny to host a pdf, why should we care about the publishers? What value do they ultimately bring to the table? We should be rethinking how this is done entirely. This is off the cuff, but... Perhaps researchers applying for public funding should be required to register as peers. Each researcher submits their publication to a public service like data.gov (maybe research.gov?). Peers are automatically assigned according to area of expertise. The peering process proceeds much like it does today. On completion of review and approval, the paper and any materials needed to reproduce the research is made public and available to anyone. The cost for all of that would be relatively trivial. Also, many of those journal fees are paid for with tax dollars to begin with. An expense that would no longer be necessary.