[logifail]

> Publishing in Academia is a scam

Relatively soon after starting work on my PhD, one of my more-experienced colleagues explained the affect of "impact factor" on academic publishing. Back then I was young and naive, and assumed that at least impact factor itself would be some kind of open system based on freely-available data.

Many years later, I read up on this and discovered Web of Science/Clarivate :(

How is it possible that scientists and academics are gated from the most important metrics based on their own output and by which they measure themselves and are measured by those who fund them?

It's completely nuts.

[coliveira]

My reply is that people want to live in a capitalist country, but don't want to live with the consequences of that. This is one of the consequences.

[smsm42]

No it is not. There's nothing in the capitalist model that mandates academic community to maintain a zero-valued-add gatekeepers. It's just an extremely lazy dunk, which happens each time somebody discusses any rent-seeker setup - somebody comes out of the woodwork and proclaims "oh, it's because of capitalism!". In a very very very dumb sense it is - like the reason of crime is that people are breathing. If they didn't they'd be dead, and there were no possibility of them to be criminal. It is this level of lazy and useless logic. Yes, capitalism allows rent-seekers to exist. But it in no way mandates their existence - a model without rent-seekers is as compatible - I would say even more compatible - with capitalism as one with them. Just don't make this kind of lazy dunks anymore, it really adds nothing to the problem.

[coliveira]

To avoid the rent seeking you need a state that will enforce laws that prohibit the rent seeking process and revert it when it has formed. This is not compatible with free market capitalism in abstract (being against the freedom of capitalist agents), and in practice it cannot be done because the capitalists will use political power to stop it.

[smsm42]

It is one pissible solution - just as one possible solution for theft is abolishing private property. If there's no property, nobody could steal anything. But it's not the only solution. There are many other ways - such as not employing the services of rent seekers, for example - that do not require government involvement. In some markets, this solution is blocked - usually by, guess what, goverment regulations - but as far as I can see, no goverment forces academia to elevate Elseveir to its pedestal.

[thunky]

Based on what OP is saying, if capitalism was really working here then Springer would be out of business - because they don't provide any value.

It seems what we have here is a cultural problem.

[aspenmayer]

In this case, it seems close to a prisoner's dilemma.

That would make the researchers the prisoners and Springer the jailer in this analogy.

All researchers are incentivized to defect to the jailer(s)/private publishers until they know that there is a critical mass of prisoners willing to make a prison break/switch to open access journals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

[ffsm8]

Honestly, you have an idealized view on capitalism.

It's still the most productive system humanity has ever used at scale, but capitalism favors monopolies, cartels and every other anti-competitive behavior you can think of.

That's why we have regulations against such behavior. Even if - as it turns out- these regulations can still be weaponized by bad acteurs to ultimately strengthen their hold on markets

[Sardtok]

He did say "if capitalism was really working". I at least read that as "working as intended", i.e. as the capitalistic ideal.

[ffsm8]

Yes, and my point was that the capitalistic ideal does not mean fair competition.

Because capitalism inherently favours anti-competitive behavior. If it didn't, we wouldn't have had to pass legislation to outlaw it.

Quoting "not real capitalism" as am argument is at the same level as saying "we just didn't try real socialism yet". That's technically true, too. And we likely never will.

[littlestymaar]

People want to live in free and democratic countries and in that respect capitalism is the least bad of the totalitarian regimes that exists…

[coliveira]

If you truly believe that capitalism is the best way to "live in free and democratic countries", then you should welcome what Elsevier and others are doing, because that is a direct consequence of their "freedom" to pursue profits.

[smsm42]

No I should not. That's like saying if I support free speech, I must welcome lying and insulting others. Supporting free speech means allowing people to speak without being persecuted, but that does not mean I must value all speech equally. Both myself and the society still can pass value judgement and value different kinds of speech differently. Same with business conduct - the fact that this conduct is not explicitly criminal does not in any way mean everybody should "welcome" it. There is a wide area between criminal conduct and welcome conduct, and the society and the culture has appropriate means to regulate it. If the academic institutions and the scientists would not value publication is Elsevier journals so much, and would not buy their subscriptions, Elsevier would not exist. It is not because Elsevier is doing something criminal, it is because people decided to behave in ways that allow Elsevier to rent-seek. They can change this behavior, and they absolutely do not need to join the Communist party for that or welcome Elsevier. Those aren't the only choices.

[coliveira]

> people decided to behave in ways that allow Elsevier to rent-seek

Your liberal ideology results in a confusion about what it means to rent-seek. This is possible only if people have no way to escape the rent. Elsevier and other companies do this by restricting the freedom of readers, since the publisher has a monopoly of access to scientific publications. It is not a matter of user behavior, since scientists cannot choose to ignore published research. The only other option available is breaking the law.

[smsm42]

Scientists can choose to publish in open access journals though. But they don't.

[littlestymaar]

I never said it's the best, it's actually pretty bad at it (and if you re-read what I've written, you'd see that I consider Capitalism to be a form of totalitarianism). It's just arguably miles ahead of the alternatives that currently exist…

[coliveira]

If you truly considered capitalism a form of totalitarianism, you wouldn't be advocating for it, nor suggesting that people who love democracy would be interested in such a system.

[littlestymaar]

Maybe you should try understanding the comments you respond to before jumping to conclusions, just saying.