tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2191533284937327485.post3450701342997333013..comments2023-10-29T08:22:43.432+00:00Comments on That doesn't seem to add up: Why aren't all journals open access?John Fabenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01949065981896055898noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2191533284937327485.post-48895715027848722912011-09-07T02:40:39.472+01:002011-09-07T02:40:39.472+01:00Three obstacles:
(1) In order to buy the journal...Three obstacles:<br /><br />(1) In order to buy the journals now, you'd need to come up with the present value of the entire future income stream to the publisher. It depends on what sorts of assumptions you make about future cost increases, or for that matter alternative investments for comparison, but this should be at least 20 times the current yearly payments. It's not easy to get your hands on that kind of money, since it would require either large loans or reallocating money from somewhere else. Plus I doubt you'd ever be able to get universities to agree on how to split the costs.<br /><br />(2) The negotiations would be terrible: the publishers would insist that the journals are worth a fortune, since they intend to charge high prices indefinitely, and the academics would insist that they will eventually stop paying anyway so the journals aren't worth nearly as much. There's probably no way to settle this, short of waiting to see what eventually happens, so I doubt the negotiations would converge to a mutually agreeable price any time in the foreseeable future.<br /><br />(3) There's nothing to stop for-profit publishers from creating new journals in the future (even if the current publishers agreed not to, new publishers would be founded). After all, there are plenty of scholars looking for editorships to list on their CV, researchers looking for publication venues, and investors looking for profits, so it would be difficult to enforce a boycott.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com