<story><title>Sweden ends contract with Elsevier, moving for open access for science articles</title><url>http://openaccess.blogg.kb.se/2018/05/16/sweden-stands-up-for-open-access-cancels-agreement-with-elsevier/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>foo101</author><text>I am surprised that it took so long after the invention of the Internet. In the pre-Internet era, these journals used to play a significant role in distributing research papers in physical paper form. It made sense then. There was no way to copy a 10 page research paper from Germany to China with a few finger taps at low cost. But with the advent of the Internet and its pervasiveness, it no longer makes sense to rely on a costly media based on physical printing, distribution, and centralized organizations milking money out of it.&lt;p&gt;I remember Timothy Gowers calling for a boycott of Elsevier back in 2012. It&amp;#x27;s 6 years since then and Elsevier is still alive. Influential researchers still submit their work to Elsevier! It took less time (a few weeks?) for everyone to boycott Digg!&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s surprising how the Internet has been used to distribute cat videos, advertisements, time-draining, and attention-draining content to a sickening degree but it is still underutilized to distribute good content like research papers such that the Internet becomes the primary and de facto media for such content.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Vinnl</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s because, despite being called &amp;quot;publishers&amp;quot;, publishing is not the main function academic publishers like Elsevier are being used for. Their main function is identifying and recognising the most valued academics in each field. So obviously academics are going to pay whatever amount of public money is needed and available to get that stamp of approval, because otherwise they&amp;#x27;ll be out of a job in a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; competitive job market.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit:&lt;/i&gt; The argument in more detail: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;flockademic&amp;#x2F;to-fix-scholarly-publishing-decouple-credentialing-from-publishing-29b211f49acc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;flockademic&amp;#x2F;to-fix-scholarly-publishing-d...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Sweden ends contract with Elsevier, moving for open access for science articles</title><url>http://openaccess.blogg.kb.se/2018/05/16/sweden-stands-up-for-open-access-cancels-agreement-with-elsevier/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>foo101</author><text>I am surprised that it took so long after the invention of the Internet. In the pre-Internet era, these journals used to play a significant role in distributing research papers in physical paper form. It made sense then. There was no way to copy a 10 page research paper from Germany to China with a few finger taps at low cost. But with the advent of the Internet and its pervasiveness, it no longer makes sense to rely on a costly media based on physical printing, distribution, and centralized organizations milking money out of it.&lt;p&gt;I remember Timothy Gowers calling for a boycott of Elsevier back in 2012. It&amp;#x27;s 6 years since then and Elsevier is still alive. Influential researchers still submit their work to Elsevier! It took less time (a few weeks?) for everyone to boycott Digg!&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s surprising how the Internet has been used to distribute cat videos, advertisements, time-draining, and attention-draining content to a sickening degree but it is still underutilized to distribute good content like research papers such that the Internet becomes the primary and de facto media for such content.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kilotaras</author><text>This is not a technological problem, but a coordination one. Each of the individual researchers, faculty and grant committees are being perfectly rational in supporting status quo, they are just stuck in a suboptimal Nash equilibrium [1].&lt;p&gt;To quote Yudkowsky for a possible solution to this metaproblem &amp;quot;That’s why we have ... there doesn’t seem to be a word in your language for the timed-collective-action-threshold-conditional-commitment… hold on, this cultural translator isn’t making any sense. “Kickstarter”? You have the key concept, but you use it mainly for making video games?&amp;quot; [2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nash_equilibrium&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nash_equilibrium&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lesswrong.com&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;x5ASTMPKPowLKpLpZ&amp;#x2F;moloch-s-toolbox-1-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lesswrong.com&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;x5ASTMPKPowLKpLpZ&amp;#x2F;moloch-s-t...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>