This is just shifting the cost from the readers to the writers. It doesn't make it any better as the prices are completely out of touch with reality. Note that this is not the cost for registering at a conference; that is separate. This is just the publishing fee for each paper.
It's not really shifting the cost from readers to writers, since these fee existed beforehand though. They just went from double-dipping to single dipping.
The open access pricing is different and higher than the old closed access pricing. That is the switch in all open access publishing. In any case, both the old prices and new ones are absurdly high.
The pricing is not about the cost of storing and serving the articles. It is partly direct revenue replacement and partly “stick” to get institutions to subscribe to APC allowance buckets.
ACM went hybrid access (optional APC for Gold open access) in 2013. Before that, there were no APCs. As of 2026 authors will pay APC unless their institution pays (by subscribing, or directly). If you are in a developed country and not affiliated with a subscriber institution, there is no longer a free-to-publish option.
what I'm seeing is that profs in the gulf countries are collaborating with profs and groups in third world countries where they are throwing money at the profs in the third world, who are doing all the work but don't have the funds to get published in these "prestigious journals"(its called the third world for a reason), so all these people get authorship for free.