From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 13:46:13 +0000


Joe, isn't this already happening? And isn't this why a system based
on submission fees hasn't successfully emerged yet?

The competition (subscription-based journals) are offering free
promotions (to authors) all the time. They have found people who pay
them through the back door (librarians, paying for subscriptions, as
long as it lasts).
"In a competitive market you can never be smarter than your stupidest
competitor." The words are yours.

This discussion is called "Future of the Subscription Model". The
fundamental issue here is that the subscription model is simply not
suited to an environment where maximum distribution is possible
without marginal cost, and what is being distributed is not consumable
(in the sense that it disappears if you consume it). In the bible
there is a story about 'loaves and fish'. Allegorical (I presume). But
scientific information in the internet environment is like the
biblical loaves and fish. Albeit not food for the body, but food for
thought. Scientific thought.

Jan

On 7 Dec 2011, at 01:25, LIBLICENSE wrote:

There was an earlier comment on this thread (which I lost, alas) to
the effect that one way to build an author-pays service is with a fee
for submission rather than for publication.  This is a great idea, and
in a world without ruinous competition (John D. Rockefeller's phrase),
it would work beautifully, as it aligns the cost to authors with the
actual cost of delivering the service.  But what happens when your
competitor offers a free Christmas promotion?  Of if eLife takes 10
years to figure out a business model?  In a competitive market, you
can never be smarter than your stupidest competitor, and if that
competitor wants to give away the store, I can see your store loaded
onto someone else's truck.

Joe Esposito