> My feeling is that the misery is inhomogeneously distributed when it comes to scientific disciplines.

>In physics the situation does not seem too terrible.

Yes, but I'd add that also in physics the misery is quite inhomogeneous. High Energy Physics seems to lean heavily towards arxiv and open access, whereas in some other subfields, such as my own in my previous life, some Elsevier journal is #1. Or lets say, on my own case, I guess one could (mostly, at least) publish in non-Elsevier journals with no serious career repercussions, but we're still very far from being able give Elsevier the finger and get by without an Elsevier subscription since one needs to read what others are doing.

I'm somewhat hopeful for the longer term, but progress is painfully slow.