Well, I am sure there is a scam, because there’s money involved and it’s happening in this day and age, but talking is free, listening is free, yet the phone company makes both sides pay so they can talk and listen, and I wouldn’t consider that a scam.
It’s about the margins. If your phone contract was “100€/minute” that would be a scam. Also journals do have a lot more power than phone companies. Journals aren’t a network of providers where you can choose whichever is cheapest.
Like I said I was expecting some sort of borderline legal scam. It’s just that the meme only mentions that you have to pay them which in itself is not a scam.
The meme leaves out the very important detail that most of the researchers working “for free” in the first panel are definitely getting paid, and usually by public funding (public universities and/or grants from taxpayer-funded institutions like NIH, NSF, etc.). That’s a big part of what makes it a scam.
Not to argue on behalf of publishers, but the papers aren’t written for free. It’s part of the job of being a researcher, it’s a significant KPI for which you’re hired and receive a wage.
Reviewing for free is pretty much bullshit though. As is paying to read them afterwards, if your research institution doesn’t pay to publish in an open access journal
I was hired to teach at a non-research college… except admin are trying to finnegal us into doing off-contract studies and publishing, moving forward. So yes, in the worst cases, it’s done even off-wage.
It’s not the publishers paying the researcher’s salaries, they’re mostly paid by public institutions and receive funding from government grants. If anything, bl researcher pay structure should result in open access publication.
I didn’t say it was the publisher’s paying the salaries. My point is that researcher are paid to research, and publishing results is part of that.
Yes, but this really does just mean we should have a government provided publisher for government funded research. I paid for this research every 4/15 and i shouldn’t have to pay again if I want to see it
Not only do you write the article for free, they will also charge you for the privilege of publishing in their journal.
Was the article really written for free or was it written with tax-payer funded government grants?
Depends on the publishing method you choose. If you want free for readers, authors pay. If you want free publishing, readers pay. Reviewers never get paid. Editors get paid shit. Journals profit massively for doing barely anything. Terrible in all directions. Preprint servers are the future
RIP Aaron Swartz
I’ve never seen this meme format! Exciting!
