> 1. How did publishers like Elsevier get started? Someone had a lot of money and knew many academics in a few fields. They asked some to review papers and oth

> 1. How did publishers like Elsevier get started? Someone had a lot of money and knew many academics in a few fields. They asked some to review papers and others to send them papers. > 2. Was their value proposition true back in the day? How did it change over time? They derived value from peer review, prestige, and collecting all pieces. Peer review is important for any journal to supply and is a useful step to put your own work through to make sure you are accurately conveying your ideas. Prestige gets you funding and degrees. Some colleges don't let you get a master's or PhD if you don't have N publications from a X impact factor journal. Before the internet your college library was your source of information. The librarian has many things to do (not now, we are talking pre-internet) and rather than find every single individual in a field and poll then for papers they go to a publisher and ask for a copy of all of the publications the journal gets. > 3. How did the industry evolve? Depending on the field not much to very much. > 3b. What are the barriers to entry and how did those evolve? Now that the internet is a thing collecting, indexing, and distributing data is "free". The barriers to entry are still prestige and peer review. > 3c. What was the business model then and what is it now? Who are the clients (universities, I presume)? How do they pay for this (taxpayer money? If so, that's a huge clue). Who is the decision-maker regarding these purchases? The business model is two steps. Librarians: you pay me an obscene amount of money each year and I'll organize a bunch of relevant papers for you. Researcher: we only accept "the best" so if you get to publish in my journal you are "the best". Purchasing subscriptions to these journals is likely still done by a librarian but i say "done" for a reason. There is no decision. You must have these journal subscriptions. More info below. > 4. How is it possible that they still exist? If they don't provide value anymore, then what is it? Are people habitual creatures? Are they pressuring universities? Did they somehow get a vendor lock-in effect (can people get out)? The lock-in is that, while they suck, researchers will only hire people with a specific number of publications in a specific impact factor journal. These journals are usually evil but it's "the one I read" so to get in front of some very important people you need to have published in some of these places. If you do the same quality work and publish it in a smaller, open access, journal that is great but it won't necessarily move your career as forward as publishing it in an important journal will.