[_almosnow]

Thanks for your opinion, Nature PR guy. However, most of what you state on your opening paragraph is really REALLY wrong.

You are part of the reason journals like Nature can still get away with it. I suggest you put your Nature shirt aside and spend sometime looking at what all the other journals are publishing nowadays, you would be surprised. Also, while you're at it, I suggest you to value your colleagues based on what they actually do instead of the name of the journals where they appear; you may end up doing real science and not these shameful PR stunts.

[therzathegza]

That is why academia for hard sciences is still very much a cathedral / ivory tower system. It is nearly a polar opposite to tech, where things are judged solely on merit.

I doubt you could argue that a first authorship Nature paper would be a negative with respect to your career prospects as an up and coming PI, either as for securing a position and/or for improving your funding.

Things are changing all the time, and pioneers like PLOS and JOVE are knocking it out of the park especially with their newer media offerings, and completely free access.

You can be as negative as you like, but to see this change from the stodgiest of journals is pretty great.