The Parachute: The Cost of Status Enhancement

... “It is a widespread and common misconception, in Academia as well as in publishing circles, that what is being paid for is ‘publishing’. I don’t think it is. Publishing (as in ‘making public’) is actually exceedingly cheap... No, what is being paid for is what might be called ‘status enhancement’. The status of individual researchers, of research departments, of universities, even of whole countries... In order to work as a status enhancement mechanism, publishing has to be formal, with ‘quality’ proxies such as peer-review and citation metrics and Impact Factors, with ‘labels’ (journal titles) that indicate these ‘quality’ markers, with redundancy limitation rules (every article must be unique, ‘self-plagiarism’ is not even allowed), etc. The providers of these services – the ‘hijackers’? – call themselves publishers (whether OA or non-OA), of course, but they are in the employ of those in the ego-system who desire status enhancement... And they charge what they can get away with... Those who have ethical or moral questions – or even just economical questions – about the cost of formal publishing and the profits made, should consider asking those questions as well in relation to the necessity of the desire for status enhancement in Academia. Is the importance of such status enhancement worth the cost?"