Academic journals are a fucking con as well.
As part of my job I sometimes need to read published articles, and can have to pay in excess of £40 just for one article, not even a whole issue of the journal.

Which I think it pretty ridiculous given that it's supposed to be a way of opening up your discovery's to people.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 24 Sep 2012, 9:57, 1 reply, 13 years ago)

RCUK now specify that you must publish open-access as a condition of grants.
But it's a fuck-up, because most totally open access journals are, well, shit.

There's a compromise whereby you can pay to have your papers free-access in a non-free journal, but then the academic group is paying about £3K so others can read the work for free, so understandably most groups don't do that.

The problem is, well, the journal has to make money somehow.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 24 Sep 2012, 10:01, Reply)