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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 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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