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Comment by system2 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks to youtube, we are satisfied enough. These people are asking for $50 for the article. Weird.

Welcome to the biggest scam in science. Research funded by the taxpayer, peer reviewed for free by other scientists in a journal run by volunteer editors all to be hosted as a PDF for massive profit by a ‘prestigious’ journal.

What is the scum part here?

Well the archival and distribution costs (the only part they really do) don't seem like they should cost $50 for say a PDF file in the 10s of MBs.

I think the fair value of what Elsevier (say) provide is > $0, but it's interesting to compare with say Spotify or Netflix - who actually have to pay for content.

Don't forget most journals take a publication fee in the hundreds. And pay per reviewers nothing.

Yep, I guess the reality is that they make all their money from "enterprise-like" sales to educational institutions.

Speculating: the reason they slap a $50 charge "per paper" for non affiliated access is that they don't actually care about those sales, that's not where their revenue comes from. Essentially that is the "sucker price".

Paying for something to access that tax payers already paid for in the first place ? How is this rocket science.

Can't believe it's still an issue in 2023. The number of times I've gotten to a paywall for an mildly interesting article and I've just walked away because either the institutional access is broken, or not covered or there's simply no way to work out where the full article is.

It's sad that people who have forgone higher financial reward and pursued a life of exploration and discovery are prevented from discussing their work unless the rent-seeking middleman gets paid.

At this point, other than being the arbiters of prestige, what do the journals offer that direct peer review does not?

Oh don't forget, the journals charge a fee to submit as well. I believe a number have "open access" submission fees much higher than normal submission.

Most (at least in my field, can't say about others) don't really charge, but yeah some do. And about open access -- some journals force you to choose open access (and hence more expensive) too.

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