[Knufen]

>As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive.

There are multiple universities spending millions upon millions (which could be used to further science), to buy subscriptions for all the journals. I know my university spends 10 mil euroes a year. And it's not only about pricing, it's the general trend of commercialising research which should benefint all of humanity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Pricing I know Elsevier is not the only one, but they are the frontrunner of parasitic behaviour.

Edit: Formatting

[dmix]

Who does this money go to? Does a percentage go back to the scientists who write the papers?

[lou1306]

It depends... Do you consider 0% "a percentage"?

[imglorp]

I think the only value-add is the prestige of a given journal. So, just brand.

The other comments are saying it's minimal publishing, peer review, and hosting costs. Oh and they spend a bunch on lawyers obviously.

[Knufen]

The publisher, essentially the researcher gives the rights to his paper in exchange for publishing. Then the publisher put the research behind a paywall and even the researcher who wrote it will have to pay.

[Bromskloss]

> even the researcher who wrote it will have to pay.

Eh, pay for what? The author already has the article. Often-times, the agreement furthermore permits limited dissemination of the article by the author, possibly even on the author's web page.

[diffeomorphism]

Pay for color figures in print, for example (a few hundred per figure if I recall correctly).

Furthermore, you get an author's copy with watermarks with very limited dissemination rights. You don't get a copy of the journal issue unless you pay.

Also, this varies very much by discipline. Math research is pretty universally available on the arXiv, but chemistry or biology is not nearly as pervasive.