Academia.edu face the same problems that all players in this space do, namely that almost all content in journals is owned by parties other than the authors the

Academia.edu face the same problems that all players in this space do, namely that almost all content in journals is owned by parties other than the authors themselves. It is almost like starting YouTube in a pre-handheld camera era, where the only videos are those produced by studios, and then targeting actors to have them upload the films. Now that Elsevier have acquired Mendeley, they have chosen a winner from the battle between Mendeley, Academia.Edu, and ResearchGate. It is going to be fairly binary from here on in for the other two parties. Either Elsevier and other commercial publishers will try and sue them out of existence, or send them enough takedown notices to render them useless, or they will acquire them. Either way I can't see an endgame here between these three businesses that doesn't result in the academic publishing landscape remaining almost as balkanised as it was 5 years ago. I think the ultimate winner in this space won't look anything like Academia.edu, RG, or Mendeley.