zlacker

>>sixtyf+(OP)
The core issue is that journals offer standard. People don't like to bother with checking every paper's reputability with a magnifying glass, and the reputation of the journal gives a shortcut around that. It's editorial work which gives the competitive edge.

Now, of course scientists could run a reputable journal for free or on donations. However, once you have achieved a reputable status with your journal, it becomes something that can be milked for money. And generally people fail to resist that temptation.

Even if they resisted, they still have the entire academic publishing industry very scared, and as we can see, these are people who aren't afraid to use the dirtiest tactics to protect their position.

Even though the status quo is strong, it can be dismantled.

>>mach1n+Jt
The existence of many high quality open access journals would seem to contradict your theory.

>>OskarS+ju
I think it proves my point. Would you rather see your paper featured in Nature or on any open access journal of your choice? Would you trust more on a random article from Nature or an article from any open access journal?

>>mach1n+Lu
I would like to have a paper featured in Nature but published in a volunteer-run non-profit open access journal. The papers published in prestigious journals are often not very useful, because they must be written for a rather general audience. When I'm building upon someone else's work, the information I'm interested in tends to be buried in the supplements, because it's too obscure for the audience of the journal.