> Of course, the customers complain about the price, so the question is, why not just buy something cheaper? Because that would defeat the whole point, which is

> Of course, the customers complain about the price, so the question is, why not just buy something cheaper? Because that would defeat the whole point, which is to buy prestige. You're basing your whole argumentation on the fact that only money can provide prestige which is upside down. The community provides prestige. History provides prestige. They just happen to have captured it and monetized it. In fields like compsci -- at least in the subfield of programming languages which i know about -- the most prestigious journals and conferences are being run by independent (non-profit) institutions, charge pennies and publish open access. They are still prestigious.