[dmitriz]

> And yet simultaneously, Elsevier has made one of the most aggressive pushes into OA publishing. They are likely the largest OA publisher by article volume today. Yes, they have the most to lose with a big shift to OA, but they also have the most to gain. And OA publishing has proven that it can be very very profitable, particularly for Elsevier.

They made the push into their version of OA, the hybrid OA, where they can charge exorbitant rate on top of the subscription, that no author would pay, whereas many journals such as the members of the Free Journals Network https://freejournals.org/ do not charge at all. And yes, it is obviously very profitable, so why would they not push it?

> But even if you hate Elsevier, they are indeed in a position to have a lot of the data needed.

Their date will reflect their own interest, where conflict of interest is obvious.

> They compile a database of all journals and citations (as do a few others, like for-profit Clarivate and non-profit Crossref).

Except that their database excludes many independent journals.