If they have a margin of 35%, they are wasting 50%. They do not copyedit. If you drop a nonsense sentance into an Elsevier journal after the volunteer editing stage, it'll be there in the published version. I've noticed plenty of typos in my own papers after publication.

> they [open journals] charge authors fees in the high 3-digit range to cover their costs.

Most Elsevier journals charge an ADDITIONAL ~$1500 if you want to open access, supposedly to make up for the lost profits.

EDIT: correction, I just checked the fee for the Elsevier journal JVGR, the last one I published in. It is $2750 per article!!! https://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-volcanology-and...

Oh and don't be confused by "green open access" -- that's not open access. It's just typical smarmy BS marketing. How the hell do we allow these people to be the guardians of science!?

They don't accomplish anything beyond rent-seeking and rubber-stamping. They are as bad as the MPAA and RIAA. I've published papers in Elsevier journals several times, and I'll probably have to keep doing it, because they are the landlord.

They are a major contributing factor to the really serious ignorance problem we have in this country.