PhilGoetz comments on The Shabbos goy - Less Wrong

35 Post author: PhilGoetz 26 March 2010 04:16PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 29 March 2010 01:57:05AM 0 points [-]

PLoS is a non-profit, and I'm certainly aware of it. If, however, for-profit academic journals charge much more than it costs to produce them, I would expect to see for-profit startups competing with them.

The "impact factor" measure is a part of this; you can't just start up a new journal and have a high impact factor.

Comment author: MichaelVassar 29 March 2010 05:59:37PM 2 points [-]

PLoS claims to be sustainable on internally generated revenue at this point. I was just at their conference.

Comment author: cupholder 30 March 2010 05:20:45AM 0 points [-]

If, however, for-profit academic journals charge much more than it costs to produce them, I would expect to see for-profit startups competing with them.

Possible explanations for not seeing that:

  • There are for-profit startups competing with the big boys, but we just don't know what they are, because of course they're smaller and less visible than the big publishers
  • Startups get bought out by big publishers
  • Social barriers to entry like the impact factor issue you mention
  • Social barriers to entry amplified even further because startups are a bunch of entrepreneurs breaking into the field from outside, so they don't have the same connections as scientists working in the field (less of a problem for big publishers because they can buy existing publishers)
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