As a researcher myself, I completely agree that taxpayers should not be subsidizing for-profit publishers. The government is wrong to fund the production of res

As a researcher myself, I completely agree that taxpayers should not be subsidizing for-profit publishers. The government is wrong to fund the production of research papers with taxpayer money and allow the owner of some privately owned pay wall to collect a toll for access to them. Great work if you can get it. It is outrageous. Whenever the public invests in something, the public should get a return if there is one. Suppose I made you the following offer. You can invest in my company by purchasing stock. If my company succeeds, your return on your investment will be the opportunity to purchase whatever I produce as a consumer. Question: if you took me up on my offer, what would that make you? Answer: a taxpayer. That's the position of the public with respect to access to scientific research published with for-profit publishers. The publisher is assigned the copyright, and collects their toll. There is no earthly reason the taxpayer should be subsidizing for-profit scientific publishers. I routinely refuse to review articles for publication in for-profit journals. A number of my colleagues have been doing this for years, and we're all over the political spectrum.