Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You have to realize publishers are in the reputation business. That's right, and that's also why the prestigious researchers and universities, those with an already established reputation, have a responsibility: collectively leave the editorial boards of for-profit publishers, set up alternative venues with the help of university libraries. Share the archival, indexing and discovery effort among universities via pe…
The problem is that the vast majority of established researchers do not care that the system is broken. Why work against the system once you're at the top? Most of them haven't ever thought about it, and the ones who know usually don't do much, because, hey, that's the way it was always done, they are used to the current journals and conferences being prestigious, and they don't want to bother with the unglamorous wo…
Re: Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research
#181This. I used to be an academic a few years back and most of the top academics thought everything was peachy. Also, certain subfields are much worse compared to others. I was a biology transplant from physics and I was shocked that preprints were actively looked down upon in biology and generally in biomedical sciences. The publishing fees often went into several thousand dollars per publication and mostly bothered only the junior academics. Oftentimes, grants would have a separate budget for publishing or if you were powerful you could get the university to pay your fees. The people who it impacted the most were those with the least power so it didn't matter. I knew postdocs who paid publishing fees from their meagre pockets because the PIs said they wouldn't or put onerous conditions like adding themselves or other members to the author list.