Ever since I looked into academic publishing many years ago, when I was considering what avenue I might publish my ideas in if I ever ended up publishing those ideas, I’ve been shocked at just how incredibly exploitive and corrupt so much of the academic publishing industry really is. You would think that it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is. Science is supposed to be the pinnacle of rationality and integrity, and yet so much of the financial side of it has been pervasively parasitically co-opted by corrupt journal monopolies.
Most academic journals seem to claim almost all of the intellectual property ownership of the research publications that academics end up producing. Even worse than that though, they also push all of this content behind expensive paywalls that are inaccessible to the same public that funded much of the research.
Continue reading More academics should self-publish commercially, outside the control of exploitive journal monopolies.