I am curious about your understanding of "the needs of the journals to make money". As I understand it, the purpose of an academic journal is to communicate ne

I am curious about your understanding of "the needs of the journals to make money". As I understand it, the purpose of an academic journal is to communicate new research. For about 300 years, a published print journal was about the most reasonable method of accomplishing this. Printing and shipping cost money, so a subscription model was a natural means of recuperating costs. Historically, academic journals were non-profit enterprises, and stipends were rare for the academic work involved, viz: writing, refereeing, editing, &c. Since a non-profit journal loses money on each print copy it has to produce, why shouldn't they reduce physical circulation by converting to an open-access model? The only people who stand to lose from a norm of open access are the for-profit publishing houses. Their influence on academic publishing, on the whole, has not exactly been encouraging so far. If we can find a more efficient way to communicate research (perhaps some kind of global network of computers might do the trick?), then we should do that. We ought take no more consideration of the needs of the journals than we should for the needs of the buggy-whip makers.