this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That's money better spent on shutting down libraries.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Why are we looking at revenue? We don't know the operating costs. What are the profit margins?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Alright but look at how much they pay the authors. What other business pays ZERO dollars for their core product?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

None, but science isn't a business. Treating it so creates perverse incentives where an articles is reviewed by merit of its financial gain and not its content. Some people already do this by prestige alone, but adding money to the mix won't improve this imo

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So it's acceptable for Elselvier et al to milk academics blind? At the minimum, authors should not be charged.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

No, but ideally all publishers should operate not-for-profit, and yep submission for open access should not cost ridiculous fees.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

According to Wikipedia, in 2022 Elsevier's revenue was 2.909 billion pounds and their net income was 2.021 billion pounds.

Not going to bother looking up the rest.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

There's a much more accurate stat... and it's disgusting

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (2 children)

As much as I'm against parasitic practices, I wonder how the inevitable corruption of money would (further) skew research if academia was well paid for their papers.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And I wonder how, not having the pressure to "succeed" research (to gain further grants), would increase the quality of said research.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I quit a physics phd path just under a decade ago because my experimental results were turning up negative and the uni I was at pushed me to doctor my results so we would keep getting funded. I also wonder about this

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

We're not saying pay the authors a bunch, we're saying make the papers free to read. Or at least don't charge authors and readers both, while keeping all the money for yourself.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Just like the Olympics. The companies are vampire squids.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago

That's unfair to both vampires and squids

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

vampire squid makes them sound cute, they are literally the scum of the earth: They are leeching billions from what is normally a tax funded sector and on the side heavily polarising publishing and access to science in favor of rich countries.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I thought you were a Biologist and were going on an actual rant about actual vampire squids lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

no I just imagined a small squid with tiny fangs

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Yeah they are more like Humboldt squid. They live below most things, in the dark, and surface when it is dark. They will eat others, of their own kind, if they are injured, or otherwise inhibited, or because their group isn't finding adequate feeding fast enough.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Or, publish to PLOS ONE, the open-access science journal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLOS_One

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Another one, Frontiers:

https://www.frontiersin.org/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

A Creative-Commons mega-journal that I did not know about. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I have a stupid question but what are the costs of a journal like this? I mean, if they don't pay the researchers and the reviewers, what do they do?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (2 children)

As of April 2021, PLOS One charges a publication fee of $1,745 to publish an article.

I mean, seriously, I would like to publish to one of these, but who has the money to do that?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

I mean, if you consider how much a study costs to get to the point of publication, the publication costs are peanuts in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

8|

Thanks, I did not know that fee was added.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There are many other open-access journals, for example these: https://freejournals.org/. But yes, open-access is the way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Thank you for these extra options. Great link.

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