> Springer Nature Group is the single largest publisher of scholarly journals, with about 3,000 titles. In terms of revenues, however, Springer is second to Els

> Springer Nature Group is the single largest publisher of scholarly journals, with about 3,000 titles. In terms of revenues, however, Springer is second to Elsevier with estimated journal revenues of €1.150/$1.333 billion (30% of Springer’s reported 2017 revenues of €1.64/$1.9 billion, in fact, derive from the sale of books). Its operating profit margin of 22.8% is also well below Elsevier’s 36.8%. —https://infrastructure.sparcopen.org/landscape-analysis/springer-nature-group https://infrastructure.sparcopen.org/landscape-analysis/spri... That is to say, after they pay all the staff, including well-paid executives, and other expenses of putting out a journal, plus pay for other initiatives that are, as you say, funded by charging universities for access to the research created by their own employees, on top of all that there's around $300 million in profit (directly or indirectly benefiting shareholders). (Btw, average profit margin for popular press publishing is around 12%, vs 22% for Springer or 36% for Elsevier). It's not a charity, or a non-profit.