> Don't forget the peer review and vetting process.

Which is almost universally done for free by the editorial/review panel for the given journal.

> As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. I've never heard of a research University unable to afford it.

It would be nice if everyone had access to research, not just those who happen to work in organisations with deep enough pockets.

> And if not for the fees we'd have no journals.

Why?

> Maybe when we are post scarcity then it'd be free. But until then people's time is not unlimited and is worth something.

The people who put in the time (editorial board) and expertise (reviewers) aren't getting paid. If they're not getting paid then where is all the money going? Personally I think the value is in the bits that are currently all done for free, Im not sure what value the publishers really add.

It seems that the publisher's value is curating studies that have gone through this process. If you were to find a study through Sci-Hub would you know that it had gone through editorial/review panel? How do you know that the study is trustworthy?

Surely that's the work of the editorial board? Again, they are largely unpaid as far as Im aware.

This makes interesting reading if you're interested in how a free (or at least very low cost) journal can work https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an...

> Which is almost universally done for free by the editorial/review panel for the given journal.

Is there good data on this? (I mean, I guess there is, but would someone present it to ignoramuses such as myself? Thanks.)

I'm not aware of any, though I haven't really looked. My understanding is that peer review is done for free because it's understood that it's a necessary part of science. That is, you review other peoples papers for free because they'll do the same for you.

I guess that falls down a bit because I bet there is a very uneven distribution of peer review work, but it's a nice sentiment at least!

Peer review has little to no financial impact..

Sounds like you should start your own free journal. That's the easiest and fastest way of getting these papers out for free.

Someone did. It's called Sci-Hub.

Sci-Hub is not a Journal itself. It is hosting other Journals' data. However https://www.plos.org/ does exist and it is a free to access Journal. Unfortunately it is pay to publish. I am unaware of any completely free Journal on both the reader and author end.

Isn't that what the World Wide Web was designed to do, before the web app? Why not just publish online on a university site, or a site for your specialty?

The difference is the peer review. If something is published in Nature, you can reasonably trust that it is legitimate science, and not a random person with no real credentials. Its an interesting cycle. People publish their best work in a prestigious journal because it is the most prestigious and trusted. Thus perpetuating what goes where. And this is also perpetuated by the grant system itself, you need to publish in prestigious journals to get grants to fund further research. You don't get funding to self publish on a university page. (I am not saying I think this is right, just stating the facts behind it)

Yes but why couldn't peer review be organised by a not-for-profit group? Perhaps a society attached to your specialty could provide a panel?

Traditionally journals have required that the author transfer copyright of the paper to the journal upon publication. They no longer have the right to publish a copy on their own university site; some journals allow it, but many stipulate that the full text cannot be available without a paywall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_policies_of_academic...

That's changing, and many journals are moving to open-access policies, but it's slow, and the most prestigious journals often have the least incentive to grant authors published in them copyright of the work.

(There's something fucked up about authors transferring copyright of publicly-funded research to private entities: if the public funded it, shouldn't it be owned by the public in the first place, i.e. public-domain? And if it's public domain, then this whole issue goes away and neither the journal nor the author has the right to restrict access to the research. But this is one example of the capture of public goods by private entities. Hell, maybe this is why a good swath of America wants to de-fund science any chance it gets, when the result of their funding just gets captured by private entities.)

I agree, publicly funded research should be public domain, where the authors cannot legally transfer the copyright to the publishers like that. However, most Journals do offer a way to publish open access, and I bet they would push things that direction. They just cost thousands of dollars, that most of the time is not affordable.

There a few. I published a paper in the Journal of Information Policy once, whose (small) expenses are covered by a grant, IIRC from libraries that would otherwise have to pay through a publisher. Very field specific, though.

>As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive.

There are multiple universities spending millions upon millions (which could be used to further science), to buy subscriptions for all the journals. I know my university spends 10 mil euroes a year. And it's not only about pricing, it's the general trend of commercialising research which should benefint all of humanity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Pricing I know Elsevier is not the only one, but they are the frontrunner of parasitic behaviour.

Edit: Formatting

Who does this money go to? Does a percentage go back to the scientists who write the papers?

It depends... Do you consider 0% "a percentage"?

I think the only value-add is the prestige of a given journal. So, just brand.

The other comments are saying it's minimal publishing, peer review, and hosting costs. Oh and they spend a bunch on lawyers obviously.

The publisher, essentially the researcher gives the rights to his paper in exchange for publishing. Then the publisher put the research behind a paywall and even the researcher who wrote it will have to pay.

> even the researcher who wrote it will have to pay.

Eh, pay for what? The author already has the article. Often-times, the agreement furthermore permits limited dissemination of the article by the author, possibly even on the author's web page.

Pay for color figures in print, for example (a few hundred per figure if I recall correctly).

Furthermore, you get an author's copy with watermarks with very limited dissemination rights. You don't get a copy of the journal issue unless you pay.

Also, this varies very much by discipline. Math research is pretty universally available on the arXiv, but chemistry or biology is not nearly as pervasive.

Remember that a lot of us don't work for research universities, and we can't afford $199 per paper just to read the details that are summarized in the abstract.

Also, many landmark papers are several decades old. A lot of time I just want to read the details of an influential paper just to see if I agree with how it is portrayed in popular culture. For example, I recently wanted to read the Dunning Kruger paper to see if it really says what people think it says. And, when James Damore cited research for his Google manifesto - I wanted to see if his conclusions held up.

I'm not sure how an average person can make informed judgments without access to these papers. Without Sci-Hub, we must just believe what is fed to us. Since its creation, Sci-Hub has become an essential part of my life.

Ditto for http://sci-hub.cc/. Another example: for those of us (just about everybody) concerned about our health, how do we access authoritative papers on pharamceutical drugs, nutrition, medical conditions etc., Or do we rely on some journalist's piece which is more often than not biased and patronizing? And the irony is that this is almost entirely tax-payer funded research.

> Don't forget the peer review and vetting process.

The peer review often happens by unpaid peers, even for commercial journals. It's really not the dominating factor for costs.

> The peer review often happens by unpaid peers

Do you know of an example of paid reviews? This would seem like a big conflict of interest and I have not heard of any but predatory journals doing that.

Historically, a large cost was typesetting and print publication. However, print is used less and less in favor of online subscriptions and typesetting is mostly using the publisher's LaTeX style file.

The "value" provided by journals seems to be:

- communication with the editor (unpaid, mostly senior peer researcher)

- review (unpaid peer)

- software to manage submissions, reviews etc (commercial)

- proofreading for typos and some fine tuning for figures and layout (useful)

- prestige of having published in an important journal (very valuable for your career)

I happen to live near a research university and while I'm not a student nobody seems to object to me wandering in and using the libraries there from time to time. But for most people the cost of accessing a journal article for casual interest is prohibitive, and not everyone has the funds or time to attend a university. The point of the web is to make knowledge available to everyone.

Be realistic, it costs more to read a single article on Nature or Science than it does to buy a book on the topic. That's bullshit.

> But for most people the cost of accessing a journal article for casual interest is prohibitive

And most people don't have access to the facilities to run proper research. R&D is not cheap.

As mentioned we live in a capitalistic society. Time is a scare resource, and the current journal editors are putting a price to their time.

If you have a passion for cheaper research papers, go ahead and compile papers & start your own free journal. That or help another free journal out.

> Be realistic, it costs more to read a single article on Nature or Science than it does to buy a book on the topic. That's bullshit.

Its total bullshit. I dont disagree. This might even be a great YC Startup opportunity :D. Until someone competes it'll continue being bullshit.

Community colleges like the one I work at can't afford the journal fees. One of my assignments involves reading several peer-reviewed articles on a narrow topic and writing an explanation of the research. Every semester I have students that struggle with finishing this assignment because the articles they need are inaccessible.

If the barrier to accessibility is such a problem, why perpetuate it by throwing your students against that wall?

The journals' business model does suck, but you're delivering students to a paywalled garden to retrieve information on what amounts to a proprietary topic. You have the power to change this by redirecting the students' attention elsewhere, either by loosening requirements or changing topics to one with more accessible research...

They choose the topic. I'm fine with anything in biology, medicine, chemistry, and even some social science topics. Some of them run into trouble and others don't depending on what they choose.

I've considered removing the assignment a few times, but there's no skill more essential to success in science than the ability to synthesize different research articles into a coherent whole. I wouldn't feel like I was doing my job if I stopped assigning it.