[Open-access] An anti-RWA bill

[Mike Taylor]

Bjorn,

One of the big advantages of a switch to author-pays is that it
doesn't hide costs.  At the moment, an author will choose journal A or
B for his paper without consideration of how expensive that journal is
-- because it's libraries that have to pay.  When one party chooses
and another pays, that is a cast-iron recipe for an inefficient
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.

-- Mike.



On 31 January 2012 20:41, Nick Barnes <nb at climatecode.org> wrote:
> 2012/1/31 Björn Brembs <b.brembs at googlemail.com>:
>
>> If all publishers went for author charges, what would be
>> keeping them from increasing the charges as they have
>> hyperinflated subscriptions?
>
> I hypothesize: exactly the problems you describe would prevent such a
> race.  Top journal publishers are terrified of losing their status.
> Seriously, terrified.
> --
> Nick Barnes, Climate Code Foundation, http://climatecode.org/
>
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