[Vinnl]

If I give you the choice between a bullet through the head or a slap in the face, it'd be ridiculous for me to claim that you were free not to choose the slap in the face.

Sure, it's not the publishers themselves that are de facto forcing researchers to publish with them, but they do make use of the fact that they're being put in a position of being a rent-seeker, and they lobby a lot to keep it that way.

Of course, the question is not "who's to blame?", but "how to change this"? And indeed, the publishers aren't too relevant to that question - it's the incentive structures that should change.

(Disclosure: I contribute to https://plaudit.pub, which aims to change these incentive structures.)