The business model of most scientific publishers is so audacious it’s hard to believe it works. Here’s the pitch: You get some of the smartest people on Earth to create your product for free. Then, you get other experts, people to quality-control that product, also for free. Finally, you sell the product back to the very people who made it (and the taxpayers who funded them) at an exorbitant markup.
If you tried to pitch this on Shark Tank, you’d be laughed out of the room. But in the world of scientific publishing, this is just regular business.
A damning new analysis, “The Drain of Scientific Publishing,” suggests that the science publishing system has become a major problem for science. Far more than just annoying paywalls, this is a systemic drain that’s actively damaging humanity’s ability to solve problems.
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