Since printing is no longer a factor, academic publishing businesses have virtually no costs. We write the articles, papers, and letters. We review each other’s work. We even serve as editors. And we do it all for free. Then, at the end of the day, our institutions have to pay hundreds of thousands of euros or dollars just to access the very content we created. Oh, and let’s not forget — we also have to pay to publish our own research in these journals. It’s not cheap either, with costs ranging from $500 to $6,000, depending on the journal and whether we want our paper to be open access (so others can access it for free).
