From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 21:03:17 -0400 I don't know what Hindawi's finances look like, but if they indeed have a 50% margin, more power to them. But let't not overlook that Hindawi is an open access publisher. High margins at H, if they indeed have them, thus cannot be due to a monopoly or the sale of aggregations. In general, I find discussions of publishing not to be anchored in evidence. That doesn't mean that the positions of OA advocates are wrong; it simply means that they are ill-informed. Joe Esposito On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 7:41 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 08:50:09 +0000 > > Joe, > Thanks for responding! > > It is difficult to come up with numbers, as superprofit actually is a > very theoretical concept, depending on possible profits from > conceivable alternative uses of the firm's assets. (Long time since my > economics classes, apologies for inaccuracies here ...). But with an > operating profit of nearly 40 per cent, I find it highly improbable > that there is no superprofit in Elsvier's scholarly publishing > activities. > > Others may have higher levels of profit - I think Hindawi had around > 50 per cent last time I saw numbers - and many will have lower profit > levels. My *hunch* is that the major publishers have profit levels > that amount to superprofits, while smaller ones generally don't - and > some operate at a loss. I would assume superprofits to be closely > associated with the ability to sell packages (also with control over > high IF journals, prestige etc.). So we pay too much for packages, and > have too little left to buy from the smaller publishers, striving to > make a decent profit. > > Superprofits are hardly earned, and in the case of scholarly > publishing I think we could safely assume that they generally stem > from control over natural monopolies, as individual journals are. > > [Now, talking of costs and prices as if they were the same and there > was any necessary connection between them, is a fallacy. The price I > meet for an iPhone is a result of the general willingness to pay for > it at the current time in the market I am a part of – Apple knows how > to use price discrimination between markets and over time, as most > other sellers of consumer electronics.] > > > Best, > Jan Erik > > -----Opprinnelig melding----- > From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2017 20:26:17 -0400 > > I believe that the amount of money going to "scam" OA publishers is > small. Not zero, but small. It should be stopped, but it's hardly the > biggest problem in scholarly communications today. > > I also agree with Jan that traditional publishers "stuff" their > packages with lower quality journals. That indeed is one (not the only > one) reason for large aggregations in the first place. But librarians > are very good about studying usage and negotiating on the basis of > that usage. So I think that "stuffing" is also a small matter. > > As for "super-profits," what are the numbers? Everyone always talks > about Elsevier's huge profit margins, but I know of many publishers > (professional societies and university presses) that lose money on > journals. Does the industry *as a whole* make money? I don't know. But > I would not be so quick to talk about super-profits without the data. > > Even assuming that there are indeed "super-profits," is it not > possible that they are earned? Do you begrudge Apple the cost of an > iPhone or HBO the price of a subscription? "Game of Thrones" comes on > in a half-hour: to my mind (at least at this instant) HBO is quite a > bargain. I feel the same about The New England Journal of Medicine, > Science, and Nature. As Gertrude Stein never said, a bargain is a > bargain is a bargain. > > Joe Esposito