5 ms·

What about a Netflix but for science information. Pay $15 a month for access to a rolling catalogue of science info.

jules 5y ago
Why? The authors write the papers for free, the peer review is done by other scientists for free. Why should this "netflix for science" get to reap the profits by locking it behind a paywall? The reason why predatory publishers still exist is a coordination problem. The journals have prestige built up historically, and the scientists need to publish in prestigious journals for their career. It's a chicken and egg problem.
- qmmmur 5y ago
  And the papers are often funded by public money.
  - GeckoEidechse 5y ago
    I'm glad initiatives like [Plan S](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S) exist ^^
    - tchalla 5y ago
      How much does it cost for an author to publish in a Nature or Science journal under Plan S?
      - rsfern 5y ago
        I don’t know specifically about for Plan S, but most open access fees are in the 3-5k range per article
    - mynameismon 5y ago
      Desktop version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S
  - dmos62 5y ago
    A related cause is to have publicly funded software be published open-source. Check out the FSFE Public Code campaign https://publiccode.eu/ https://publiccode.eu/.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  I'm not sure about how fair the whole system is, but if we assume the papers should be free, then a service where the papers are available is still reasonable to have a small fee. Someone needs to rent and service the servers, update the software, bandwidth costs money, etc..
  - MrManatee 5y ago
    There's a lot of information, data, and software out there that is available to download for free. Yes there are hosting costs, but there are also people and organizations that are willing to pay them because they believe that it's worth it. I'm absolutely convinced that if copyrights weren't an issue, there would be enough governments, foundations, universities, corporations, and individuals willing to pay the costs of making scientific publications available to everyone. It wouldn't have to be a paid service.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    > Someone needs to rent and service the servers, update the software, bandwidth costs money, etc.. Scientific papers use approximately zero bandwidth. As a point of reference, if I hosted such a website on my home internet connection I would be paying approximately 0.00013 cents per upload. Even users downloading millions of papers would cost me less than a coffee. Setting up and managing a proportionate payment system would cost more than just eating the bandwidth costs would.
mimsee 5y ago
Then download everything possible with a small script and the FBI will hunt you down. For those who don’t know, I’m referring to Aaron Swarzt
- crest 5y ago
  And the DA will hound you till you drop dead to get re-elected.
curiousgal 5y ago
It's always amusing to see how much people take for granted. $15 is a lot of money for most people. Not to mention that not everyone has access to internation bank accounts.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  I think the comment makes fun of the fact that content gets removed from Netflix all the time, so it is not very useful as a reference.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sleepingsoul 5y ago
You can more or less do this with scite's Citation Statement Search[1,2], or by setting email notifications when we detect new citation statements to one or more papers (grouped by a topic you're interested in like a disease or drug, an author, or more)[3]. Quick video of our citation statement search to give you a glimpse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjCn-4uMJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjCn-4uMJk [1] https://scite.ai https://scite.ai [2] https://citation.to https://citation.to [3] https://help.scite.ai/en-us/article/how-can-i-set-alerts-on-a-search-topic-of-interest-13rz5bg/ https://help.scite.ai/en-us/article/how-can-i-set-alerts-on-... (Disclaimer -- I work at scite!)
- shkkmo 5y ago
  This self promotion seems off topic and unrelated to the person you are replying to.
lcvw 5y ago
Libraries can get you a physical copy of pretty much any paper or book for completely free. But somehow getting a digital copy is not on the table? It’s just insane, I would happily pay for a service that did this even if it included drm or something. The journals would never go for it though because they live off of the insane rates research institutions pay to subscribe.
Sakos 5y ago
The research was already paid for by us. Make it free as it should be.

Why? The authors write the papers for free, the peer review is done by other scientists for free. Why should this "netflix for science" get to reap the profits by locking it behind a paywall? The reason why predatory publishers still exist is a coordination problem. The journals have prestige built up historically, and the scientists need to publish in prestigious journals for their career. It's a chicken and egg problem.

qmmmur 5y ago
And the papers are often funded by public money.
- GeckoEidechse 5y ago
  I'm glad initiatives like [Plan S](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S) exist ^^
  - tchalla 5y ago
    How much does it cost for an author to publish in a Nature or Science journal under Plan S?
    - rsfern 5y ago
      I don’t know specifically about for Plan S, but most open access fees are in the 3-5k range per article
  - mynameismon 5y ago
    Desktop version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S
- dmos62 5y ago
  A related cause is to have publicly funded software be published open-source. Check out the FSFE Public Code campaign https://publiccode.eu/ https://publiccode.eu/.
faeyanpiraat 5y ago
I'm not sure about how fair the whole system is, but if we assume the papers should be free, then a service where the papers are available is still reasonable to have a small fee. Someone needs to rent and service the servers, update the software, bandwidth costs money, etc..
- MrManatee 5y ago
  There's a lot of information, data, and software out there that is available to download for free. Yes there are hosting costs, but there are also people and organizations that are willing to pay them because they believe that it's worth it. I'm absolutely convinced that if copyrights weren't an issue, there would be enough governments, foundations, universities, corporations, and individuals willing to pay the costs of making scientific publications available to everyone. It wouldn't have to be a paid service.
- sellyme 5y ago
  > Someone needs to rent and service the servers, update the software, bandwidth costs money, etc.. Scientific papers use approximately zero bandwidth. As a point of reference, if I hosted such a website on my home internet connection I would be paying approximately 0.00013 cents per upload. Even users downloading millions of papers would cost me less than a coffee. Setting up and managing a proportionate payment system would cost more than just eating the bandwidth costs would.

mimsee 5y ago

Then download everything possible with a small script and the FBI will hunt you down. For those who don’t know, I’m referring to Aaron Swarzt

crest 5y ago
And the DA will hound you till you drop dead to get re-elected.

curiousgal 5y ago

It's always amusing to see how much people take for granted. $15 is a lot of money for most people. Not to mention that not everyone has access to internation bank accounts.

smnrchrds 5y ago
I think the comment makes fun of the fact that content gets removed from Netflix all the time, so it is not very useful as a reference.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sleepingsoul 5y ago

You can more or less do this with scite's Citation Statement Search[1,2], or by setting email notifications when we detect new citation statements to one or more papers (grouped by a topic you're interested in like a disease or drug, an author, or more)[3]. Quick video of our citation statement search to give you a glimpse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjCn-4uMJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjCn-4uMJk [1] https://scite.ai https://scite.ai [2] https://citation.to https://citation.to [3] https://help.scite.ai/en-us/article/how-can-i-set-alerts-on-a-search-topic-of-interest-13rz5bg/ https://help.scite.ai/en-us/article/how-can-i-set-alerts-on-... (Disclaimer -- I work at scite!)

shkkmo 5y ago
This self promotion seems off topic and unrelated to the person you are replying to.

lcvw 5y ago

Libraries can get you a physical copy of pretty much any paper or book for completely free. But somehow getting a digital copy is not on the table? It’s just insane, I would happily pay for a service that did this even if it included drm or something. The journals would never go for it though because they live off of the insane rates research institutions pay to subscribe.

Sakos 5y ago

The research was already paid for by us. Make it free as it should be.