[Open-access] An anti-RWA bill

[Mike Taylor]

Explain again why you are on this open-access mailing list?

-- Mike.


On 1 February 2012 06:06, Bjoern Brembs <b.brembs at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 01/31/2012 09:41 PM, Nick Barnes wrote:
>>
>> I hypothesize: exactly the problems you describe would prevent such a
>> race. Top journal publishers are terrified of losing their status.
>> Seriously, terrified.
>
>
> Yes, so they keep the price up, because dumping prices mean they don't have
> any status any more. Since when did prestige come cheap? Name one instance
> of a market, where the top-notch segment raced for cheaper prices? When has
> Rolls-Royce ever competed with Daihatsu? Even after a solid 8 hours of
> sleep, this seems to argue in my favor: we'll still have a hierarchy, only
> that this one now is based on price: worse than before (at least for
> scientists).
>
> If you're faced with the choice of flipping burgers if you drive a Daihatsu
> or leading as lab if you loan money to drive a Rolls, most people will take
> up money, so there's zero incentive to cut on prices. Where would be the
> incentive?
>
>
> On 01/31/2012 10:42 PM, Mike Taylor wrote:
>>
>> One of the big advantages of a switch to author-pays is that it
>> doesn't hide costs.
>
> That's a standard argument. Still you have Rolls-Royce and Rolex and Dom
> Perignon. This would probably be the very first time in history that the top
> brands wouldn't charge outrageously for their place at the top. Paying only
> 8k for a Nature paper would be like buying a bottle of Dom Perignon for a
> measly 60$ - price dumping!
> Why should that happen when you only need 8% of all scientists to publish
> with you to make a great living? What would make scholarly publishing so
> radically different from any other market?
>
>
>> But when the scientists choosing which journals to place
>> their work in are the ones paying, the costs of inefficient journals
>> will no longer be concealed at decision time.  Journals will have to
>> compete on quality of service and on price.  And once we have an
>> efficient market, many of the practices that are currently common will
>> become impossible to sustain.
>
> If your livelihood depended on a Rolls Royce, would you not do everything
> possible to get it, even if it didn't make any sense to have it? Today,
> people fake data, brown-nose editors and bend over backwards to get
> published in CNS. This will all stay that way, plus people will take up
> personal money to pay for top journals because grants won't incorporate
> these sums.
> Tuition in the USA used to be less than 500US$ for in-state students in
> state-owned schools. Now some of these schools charge 25k per semester. And
> people are willing to pay that because they feel they have to. What makes
> our publishing so special that would prevent something from happening that
> occurs everywhere else? What extremely unique trait does publishing have
> that not a single other market has?
>
> Why would Nature not be Rolls Royce and Science Dom Perignon and Cell the
> Rolex of publishing? They already are, by several measures except price.
> Which market doesn't have a luxury segment and how is it similar to
> publishing? On the contrary, hyperinflation seems to be the consequence of
> anything where public money is involved.
>
> We should be making evidence-based decisions. So far, all arguments seem to
> be hope and wishful thinking. Where is the evidence for publishing becoming
> a unique market which will not have a luxury segment as all other markets?
>
> All the best,
>
> Bjoern
>
>
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