3 ms·

The business model of journals seem to be particularly perverse and artificial. The universities not only have more brand value and credibility but also the res

The business model of journals seem to be particularly perverse and artificial. The universities not only have more brand value and credibility but also the resources to publish journals themselves. It's interesting how the journals managed to get a monopoly on this over 50 years. There seems to little reason for a private entity to be able to inject themselves here and take control of public output. It's like the public paying for oil exploration with private companies like Exxon Mobil stepping in when it is found to take control and sell the oil. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with capitalism or any ism, it looks like pure theft.

cinquemb 9y ago
>It's interesting how the journals managed to get a monopoly on this over 50 years. There seems to little reason for a private entity to be able to inject themselves here and take control of public output. I think it's symbiotic relationship between universities. Universities get together and decide who to pay to distribute their "best" research, in effect creating a prestige/walled garden affect surrounding academic publishing, raising the barrier for non well monied researchers having access to the audience. If universities decided that they would no longer publish in nature et al., and just put publications on arvix or something, then the monopoly would effectively die, but It's not in their interest to do so since universities will have to compete on mind-share on what papers attract the most interest in a field and chip away at the advantages they have today. Long term though, universities will loose their advantage as it becomes easier to engage and propagate knowledge outside of such.