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A comment on That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to publisher, 0% to authors. Parent comment

Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by Vinnl on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @04:45PM (#17656942)
I think you're downplaying the actual costs they have quite a lot, which is a shame, because even without that the share of profits they extract is still disproportionate and unjustifiable.
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by cptaj on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @04:53PM (#17657013)
On one hand you have free journals out there and on the other entertainment companies producing billions of dollars worth of content for less money charged to their consumers.

These people spend 0 on content and their infrastructure is easily rivaled by free alternatives.

He is in no way downplaying anything. The whole thing is ridiculous.

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by Vinnl on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @03:31AM (#17660342)
Those journals do a lot less. I'm not saying that the other stuff is worth doing, but at least it's something they're doing - there's no need to brush that aside.
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by romwell on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:23PM (#17658559)
>I think you're downplaying the actual costs they have quite a lot

Yeah right, that's why SciHub[1], which does it for free has been nearly impossible to maintain. The main difficulty is the cost of hosting, and not at all the mounting pressure from the litigation from the publishing industry.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by dingo_bat on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @01:37AM (#17659971)
I assume you're being sarcastic?
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by IshKebab on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:45PM (#17657502)
How are their costs significant? Web hosting is extremely cheap. As far as I can see their only really cost is staff to arrange reviews (which is surely a very low paid job).

Everything else they might do - collating papers into a physical journal, complaining about bibliography formats, etc. is superfluous nonsense that nobody really cares about.

Look at arxiv - the only thing it's missing that journals have is reviews.

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by overeater on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:59PM (#17658064)
AirBnB -- How are their costs significant? Web hosting is extremely cheap.

Yelp -- How are their costs significant? Web hosting is extremely cheap.

Twitter -- How are their costs significant? Web hosting is extremely cheap.

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by guipsp on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @07:13PM (#17658150)
This would be a good reply, except you've failed to acknowledge arxiv's existence.

Is the value of journals over arxiv worth the price? (market says yes, but markets are sometimes wrong).

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by romwell on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:24PM (#17658562)
>This would be a good reply, except you've failed to acknowledge arxiv's existence.

Or SciHub's, for that matter.

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by MrEldritch on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:09PM (#17658492)
Come to think of it, what does pay arXiv's bills?
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by bibixii929 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:48PM (#17658706)
Universities and foundations, etc.

https://arxiv.org/help/support/faq#2B

https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/arxivpub/arXiv+Budget...

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by yiyus on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @07:42PM (#17658330)
Are you seriously comparing the web hosting needs of Elsevier and Twitter?
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by Vinnl on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @03:33AM (#17660351)
No, they're comparing the cost structures, which both do not consist only of web hosting.
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by bloaf on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:15PM (#17658521)
Web hosting is cheap enough that Wikipedia runs entirely on donations.
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by Vinnl on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @03:33AM (#17660349)
Wikipedia definitely it not cheap, the donations that it receives are not a little, and web hosting are not its only costs.
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by IshKebab on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @07:34AM (#17661528)
Wikipedia only spends $2m on hosting out of a budget of $91m. It's biggest expense is salaries ($33m).

But this is one of the biggest sites in the world. Something closer to what Journal Publisher's would need is Arxiv.

Arxiv's budget is $1m of which they spend $60k on hosting and basically all of the rest on staff and staff support.

Eslevier's revenue is £2.5b. billion. Their profit margin is over 50%. What a monumental waste.

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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by Vinnl on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @10:25AM (#17662738)
Their profit margins is usually between 30-40%. Which is still a monumental waste.
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Re:That $35 that scientific journals charge goes 100% to pub... by Gauc2 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @09:18PM (#17658872)
>Look at arxiv - the only thing it's missing that journals have is reviews.

That is a pretty significant difference.

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