[TeMPOraL]

> Administrative, some technical, some networking, some advertizing, maintaining relations within the relevant fields etc.

Taking into account that they don't really do peer-review and don't pay for it either, and that their editing is close to nonexistent (and as likely to introduce errors as to improve anything), all the other costs seem to be a self-perpetuating loop - the work is being done just to support itself, with no actual surplus value being produced. It's a resource leak, a circular reference in the economy.

[afiori]

My understanding is that the real job of a publisher in academia is brand recognition.

[einpoklum]

That's part of it, sure.

It's not meaningless, either. If you have a hundred venues for publication - what should you choose to follow? What should a library subscribe to? What do you recommend to students? etc.

[einpoklum]

I have never been involved in running an academic journal. But I have been involved in a group which published a periodical. And from my experience I can tell you that you're dead wrong. Without all that work, there is no journal, no publication, no readership, and limited interest and exposure of people to the content.

[specialp]

This isn't really true. I work for a non profit scholarly society publisher, and we pay millions of dollars a year for copy-editing/formatting and also the work to find referees that do not have conflicts of interest/are not busy/actually respond and are qualified to assess the paper is indeed costly. If it were zero or negative sum there'd be loads of open platforms out there for peer-review and publishing.

I am also a big fan of open-access and hate paywalls myself. I also don't like big, for profit, predatory journals. There is value in curated and managed journals. Just not the value that these big corporations are reaping from them.

[adamsea]

Some probably do those things some of the time.

The others require the appearance of having done so.