[bainsfather]

I have a distant relative who works for Springer Nature, and previously worked for Elsevier.

She's a nice person who I rather like. I have tried discussing the ethics of her employer's journals business in a polite way. She told me what I felt were the company's "talking points" - "well, publishing is actually quite expensive, we publish many more papers than we used to, etc" - all of which I think are not valid justifications - e.g. look at the huge profit margins of Elsevier. And yet I think she believes them, or at least "chooses" to believe them.

I find it rather depressing that someone, who is otherwise a fine human being, chooses to work there. I know quite a few other people in the same situation, in various other businesses.

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning what some of the people "on the dark side" are like, and that in the mirror they look rather like me and you in most respects. My opinion is that at work they are in an environment of people who all choose to believe the same thing, and so what they do is "normal" and "acceptable".