Why Society and Not-For-Profit Journals Are Worth Preserving: Better Economic and Continuing Value for the Community - The Scholarly Kitchen

"While Plan S has the right goal at its core – the world would be a better place with absolutely unfettered access to high quality, vetted information – it offers no new ideas for how to achieve and maintain that goal in a scalable, sustainable, and long-term manner. While the implementation plan calls for “support mechanisms for establishing Open Access journals, platforms, and infrastructures where necessary,” as well as a, “diversity of models and non APC-based outlets,” it offers nothing further as far as what those models might be or how that support might work. They are essentially passing-the-buck along to others, you figure out something new and maybe we’ll help you (“So long as you can meet these conditions the details of how you do so are not of great interest to us right now. It is for you publishers to tell us how you plan to implement the principles.”). Given that we’ve been experimenting with new OA models for nearly 20 years, and that Plan S goes into effect in a mere 13 months, it is unlikely that any new revolutionary business model will emerge, pass approval, be funded, and be in place by the time its requirements start.

Because of this, Plan S is a de facto Author-Pays, APC-based, Gold OA mandate. Publishers will largely be consumed with adapting to Plan S-related rules, rather than devoting time and funds to new experiments. And they’ll need some revenue source to keep the lights on while waiting for those new models to be uncovered, so APCs seem the most likely route...."