[openknot]

>"you would see more of those decent articles if people were more inclined to follow a subscription model where the journal is accountable to its customers."

I think this argument holds up. For example, publications like the Scientific American and The Scientist tend to be very high quality in terms of accuracy (usually with unobtrusive citations, if I recall correctly). It's too bad their subscriptions prices are so high; they were hundreds of dollars a year if I remember correctly, versus less than 50 dollars a year for other magazines.

Ii'm not sure about how financially successful they are, but I found myself struggling to justify such a subscription price, when the purpose was essentially edu-tainment. The publications that can more easily get people to pay more, in my view, ostensibly help people make more money or find career success, which is why industry publications like STAT for biotech/medicine (and more generally, publications like the WSJ/Bloomberg) tend to be more financially successful.