Plan S and the economics of scientific journal publishing
peter.suber's bookmarks 2019-02-06
Summary:
"Paywalls and subscription requirements are currently tools publishers use to exercise their market power. However, the underlying reason for publishers’ market power is not this tool, but rather the fact that journals provide services that cannot, at least from the point of view of individual researchers, be easily replaced by the services of other journals. This will prevail even with open access.Rather than imposing very strict requirements on journals’ business models, we would encourage funders to collaborate with academies and professional organizations. These organizations have the professional credibility to establish new but still highly regarded journals if needed. Funders can fully finance such journals, presumably at a reasonable cost, making subscription fees as well as publication fees redundant...."