And yet nobody in the industry is doing the work for cheaper at scale. And the noble non-profit players like PLOS aren't able to do it cheaper either. So yes, you can take the stand that literally every single player in the industry really sucks at what we do, from the large commercial publishers all the way to the non-profits. Or you could acknowledge the alternate hypothesis, which is that it might simply cost that much to deliver the services performed.
PLOS's prices are ridiculous as well, and their surplus is quite staggering.
There are players like peerj that publish at the fraction of the price. Also many smaller non-profit journals have APCs in tye range of tens of dollars.
PeerJ's APC pricing is $1,095. We're actually an investor in PeerJ and are really hoping they're a success. But they're not a counter-point to PLOS-level APCs (they are indeed still cheaper, but not substantially anymore).
And yes, there are examples of small-scale journals charging less, or society journals charging less/free because it's paid for by the society membership fees. There's Tim Gowers' arXiv overlay journal. There's a bunch of small-scale examples or anecdotes. But none of those are repeatable at the scale the academic community needs.
You're right, I didn't give you the financial breakdown of our operating costs that you wanted. First of all, I don't actually know the per-published-article costs and breakdown off the top of my head. And second, I wouldn't post that information publicly here. I guess that means you'll continue to think that we don't do any work and collect vast sums of money, sitting in dark rooms laughing about how we get to fuck everyone over. You clearly think every single player in the industry is doing it wrong. I'm not going to change your mind.
Ah, PeerJ did the bait and switch too. Thanks for the heads up.
And yes, that's what I'll keep on thinking. I wouldn't be much of a scientist if I'd take an industry shill's claim at face value, 'cuz secrets and all.
And I don't think you're very different from other corporate leeches. Probably the investors take the biggest cut of in the racket, but I'm quite certain many of the minions get compensated quite well too. Plenty of those in the academia as well.
You can call it bait and switch, but the reality is simple and not nearly as nefarious, it's just about trying to find a sustainable business model. It's either that or go out of business. There's no grand cabal running a conspiracy that forces players like PLOS and PeerJ to raise their prices. They're just trying to stay alive, and they price their product to do so, just like literally every other corporation in the world.
"Staying alive" meaning paying those yachts? If PLOS pays out hundreds of thousands to its execs, I can only imagine the gluttony going on in the for-profit scams. And they have to make those rich investors richer for being rich on top of it!
