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Most of academic research is not a for-profit enterprise and aims at serving the common good: scientists don't make direct monetary profit from the articles tha
by a3_nm 9y ago
Most of academic research is not a for-profit enterprise and aims at serving the common good: scientists don't make direct monetary profit from the articles that they write.
Knowing that this "idealist" system appears to work, one would expect that a not-for-profit service analogous to Academia.edu would not be a completely unrealistic dream... This is why Academia.edu is disliked by the author and other academics: they are building a for-profit service on top on the not-for-profit system of academic research.
- OJFord 9y ago> Most of academic research is not a for-profit enterprise and aims at serving the common good: scientists don't make direct monetary profit from the articles that they write. It is, usually, however their job and career: they do make indirect monetary profit.
- jessriedel 9y agoAcademia.edu is awful, but it's silly to think that just because academics work at non-profit institutions that all their tools should be provided by non-profits. I've purchased many pieces of software to help with my research and I don't expect the developers to do it out of the kindness of their heart.
- scottLobster 9y agoThey do get paid, just more indirectly in the form of grants. It may not be for "profit", but scientists don't work for free or publish purely out of altruism. As for building for-profit services on top of not-for-profit research, I don't see the issue. Would it be equally immoral to sell or even lease Bibles to churches since churches are financially reliant on donations? The beauty of Capitalism is it tells you what people are willing to put money/time towards. If enough of the scientific community feels so strongly that academic research should be accessible for free via some sort of charity, they are welcome to start and manage said charity and/or refuse to buy subscriptions to Academia.edu. I honestly wish them luck, a free, open service for such knowledge would be awesome! However, proclaiming that others are morally obligated to provide that charity, simply because they market their service to "charities", sounds rather arrogant to me.
- jasonlotito 9y agoIf this is true, why don't they just release their work on their own sites under a permissive license? It seems like such a simple problem to solve.