“People often say to me, ‘You don’t pay the authors. You don’t pay the reviewers. You hardly print anymore. The Web is free. Why do you charge?’” said H. Frederick Dylla, the former director of the American Institute of Physics and board member of the Association of American Publishers. “It sounds like a compelling argument. But it actually isn’t.”

Albert Greco, a publishing expert at Fordham University who is working on a book about scholarly publishing, said those making that argument are forgetting everything they learned or should have learned in economics class.

“There are costs,” he said. “Does The Washington Post have a paywall?”

Yes.

“So is it fair then if some high-school student wants to really follow the Supreme Court and doesn’t have the money to pay?” Greco said. “Life is a bitter mystery. We can’t give everything away for free. It’s not that kind of country.”

These assholes don't even have a better reason for fleecing everyone than base greed, and they don't try to hide it.

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The existence of publishers for scientific literature is completely unnecessary in the modern era. They exist only to make profits to continue their existence. They don't actually provide value anymore when research institutions can just conduct peer review and then let researchers self-publish.

They create negative value (a bottleneck) by limiting who can access research for just... aggregating and hosting articles.

[–] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

wouldn't it be funny if I slapped in a few ssds into an old desktop I found on the side of the road and hosted the entirety of human knowledge from it

[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 4 points 23 hours ago

YOU wOULDN'T
DOWNLOAd A
CIVILISATION

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

“It sounds like a compelling argument. But it actually isn’t.”

Well, I'm convinced!

[–] loutr@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

Refuses to elaborate

Sues

[–] 1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@lemmy.zip 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

‘You don’t pay the authors. You don’t pay the reviewers.

We can’t give everything away for free. It’s not that kind of country.

Instead, he just takes everything from authors and reviewers for free. Is he living in a different country?

[–] bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No give, only take!!!

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

former director of the American Institute of Physics

arXiv, which physicists setup nearly as far back as the web, would have a word with this guy. The web was invented at CERN practically so physicists could share research documents.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

[–] GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago

Elbakyan is an immeasurably more virtuous, noble and honorable person than these Dylla and Greco worms.

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 1 day ago

Yeah lmao, that's the worst possible argument he could give I think

"Have you forgotten your economics class?" And then compared public research to a private newspaper

Like, lmao

[–] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

economics class

which is absolute ideology anyhow

“Does The Washington Post have a paywall?”

wow, you're using the everyone else is doing it argument. These are fucking children

[–] Orcocracy@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago

Also the Washington Post actually pays its writers.

[–] ThermonuclearEgg@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

This is an insult to children, who are generally willing to share and kind people, unlike these corporate ghouls

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

“Life is a bitter mystery. We can’t give everything away for free. It’s not that kind of country.”

Tautology School Degree. Why not?

[–] spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago

"Does this for profit news agency require money for information? Then surely academic research needs to require money to get the info as well! Nevermind that public funds are involved with a lot of research initially where news orgs don't have that, we need to make a profit cuz reasons!"

[–] bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

That can't sounds like won't

[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I could almost sympathize when it came to paper publishing. Because the cost to publish was high, and not a lot of people buying. But now with electronic formats, yeah, they are total assholes in the current sense.