“People often say to me, ‘You don’t pay the authors. You don’t pay the reviewers. You hardly print anymore. The Web is free. Why do you charge?’” said H. Frederick Dylla, the former director of the American Institute of Physics and board member of the Association of American Publishers. “It sounds like a compelling argument. But it actually isn’t.”

Albert Greco, a publishing expert at Fordham University who is working on a book about scholarly publishing, said those making that argument are forgetting everything they learned or should have learned in economics class.

“There are costs,” he said. “Does The Washington Post have a paywall?”

Yes.

“So is it fair then if some high-school student wants to really follow the Supreme Court and doesn’t have the money to pay?” Greco said. “Life is a bitter mystery. We can’t give everything away for free. It’s not that kind of country.”

These assholes don't even have a better reason for fleecing everyone than base greed, and they don't try to hide it.

[–] spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 weeks ago

"Does this for profit news agency require money for information? Then surely academic research needs to require money to get the info as well! Nevermind that public funds are involved with a lot of research initially where news orgs don't have that, we need to make a profit cuz reasons!"

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