[PaulHoule]

Even arXiv has struggled at times.

Elsevier has a sustainable business because they force university libraries to pay big $$$. The big $$$ can be fed back into sales, lobbying politicians, and other activities that leave enough money that the executives behind it can get paid big $$$.

Academic databases might cost 1/1000 as much to run as commercial journals, but then there isn't any surplus they can use to get rents.

[jessaustin]

It isn't clear from TFA, but COS might be going for that "surplus", themselves. When all their users were signing up, were they informed that what was free then would soon cost thousands of dollars?

[jessriedel]

When was was the last time the arXiv was actually at risk of not having enough money?

[PaulHoule]

The time they laid me off in the mid-2000's.