[ineedasername]

Whether it was done by the publisher or someone else, the work has to be done. If not by the publisher, then it's reflected in a lower share of the sub fees for the publisher.

But my point wasn't to say the high sub fees are okay, it was to rebut the idea that publishers add no value, when that is often (though not always) incorrect.

IIRC, the small publisher I worked for had net profits of about 10% on $5 million in revenue. Not unreasonable for handling pretty much every aspect of the process apart from final decisions on article inclusion and a few other high level details.

Even when I worked at the small company though, we hated Elsevier. Elsevier are little better than extortionists saying "nice library collection you have there. Shame is something happened to it. How about you pay us double this year?"