The one remaining strength of publishing is its prestige

This essay is a bit harsh on the publishers, and it also ignores the fact that the publishers are responding rationally to the one strength they still have:

This is the true tragedy of modern “publishers”: that as the world has become able to do the job that once only they could do, they’ve not stepped graciously aside, but devoted their energies to preventing works being available. The publishers’ outdated business model forces them to act in a way directly opposed to their mission.

Why do you think legacy publishers’ open-access APCs are so much higher than those of all-OA publishers like PLOS, F1000 Research, eLife or Peerj? Sure, part of it is sheer profiteering, but even when you factor that out their prices are outrageous. It’s because they have to pay for:

The paywalls themselves

Authentication systems

Integration of their own authentication systems with others such as Athens and Kerberos

Lawyers to sue people who access published materials in ways the publishers don’t like

Spin doctors to fabricate reasons to mistrust open access

Public Relations people to grope for explanations of why their own behaviour is not reprehensible
Lobbyists

Bribes campaign contributions for politicians to perpetuate their obsolete business model.

Media people to guide the anti-open policies of special-interest groups

Countless executives to waste time on conference calls about text-mining (in this case, three Directors, a Deputy Director, a Vice President and an Account Manager.

That’s harsh, but that does not entirely explain the high prices some publishers still get:

No wonder Elsevier, Wiley, Springer and Blackwell are all converging on APCs on the order of $3000*, while PLOS ONE charges $1350, F1000 Research $1000, eLife free and PeerJ a one-off fee of $99.

Nothing I write should be read as a defense of Elsevier, but Mike Taylor is surprisingly blind to the one great strength publishers still have: they can control prestige in a way the Internet can not. When everyone can publish, then publishing does not indicate quality. Publishing in print still indicates quality, because publishing in print is expensive. And that is something that publishers need to focus on if they want to survive: they can be arbiters of quality.

Needless to say, the market for determining quality is much smaller than the old market for everything that could be published, including trash. So some publishers will die out. But we know what the survivors will become: arbiters of prestige.