From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 08:20:50 +0000 Joe, you are right: High profit margins at Hindawi cannot be a result of their controlling a monopoly (or sale of aggregations). But only to a degree: They could be (and I believe they must be) a result of high prices in the publishing market, not connected to high costs but to monopolistic competition. No need for H to set much lower prices than competitors, but with low costs they can earn much money as long as pricing in the market is set by the large players who control monopolies, and how have high costs, often for historical reasons. The numbers I found some years ago indicated that Hindawi's 50 per cent profit margin came from APCs lower than Elsevier's per article profit. Which means that there is much room for cost-cutting and lowering of prices if a competitive marked for APCs can be created. The larger publishers won't have the creating of a competitive market high on their agenda, quite the opposite. So it is up to libraries and other buyer's or buyers' representatives to work towards such a change. Best, Jan Erik -----Opprinnelig melding----- 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