Notice that arXiv does not need any money from its users; it is fully funded from academic/private donations and it does not seek to maximize revenue. Authorea

Notice that arXiv does not need any money from its users; it is fully funded from academic/private donations and it does not seek to maximize revenue. Authorea is very different; it has a very tough pricing model where you have to either choose to publish even partial work while you are writing (unacceptable to most scientists I know) or pay per article AND per month. Basically, my issue with it is the same as with the current open-access model: I am trying my hardest to produce good science and release it for free; yet somebody tries to profit not from my own results, but from my desire to have those results published for free. ArXiv helps me while refusing to profit from this desire, and thus I love it. You have to keep in mind that a lot of scientists (I think this is true for compsci/math/physics) choose a 50% pay cut so that they can do science, and not go into the (programming) industry. Speaking as a PhD student, we have modest means and do not like to be gouged.