Thanks for your reply. I agree with most of what you have just said. Publishing (on the internet) is a world of large up-front fixed costs (the first copy) and marginal costs that approach zero.

I think you misunderstand my worldview. I don’t think it is “dupes” vs. “idealists”. There is probably a place for for-profit OA publishers. There is certainly a place for people making a living.

I like the open access model for the same reason that I like free & open source software. I think it is the right model in a world in which copies of software or articles can be made freely. I think it is wrong to be unable to share knowledge with others. I want to enable that sharing. And proprietary software, and proprietary publishing, prevents people from sharing that knowledge. (Harry Potter is probably a different thing; I don’t know what the right model is for creative entertainment).

Regarding the question of PLoS generating surpluses. First, PLoS is a non-profit, so anything above operating costs would have to be put back into activities that support their core mission. But say a for-profit does. What is the problem? Authors retain the copyright. If the authors don’t like the model, they can publish with a different publisher. If the readers don’t like the model, they can get all the content from the publisher (or author) and set up a new web site. I just don’t see the issue. On the other hand, with a publisher that obtains copyright and charges for access, the authors cannot move their content out of the publication, and readers cannot access it.

The problem is that this model does not port to online publishing because there are a host of costs associated with an article after is is published. There are online hosting costs, bandwidth costs, archiving costs, and costs of conversion to new formats. Journals that began publishing in the mid-1990s have likely gone through several iterations of SGML and XML DTDs – requiring conversion. Articles published prior to online publishing have had to be scanned (for PDF) and/or keyed (for XML). Reading on ereaders requires further conversion to EPUB. The list goes on.

The point is not that the cost of a download is/not marginal, the point is that the costs associated with an article do not end at the time an article is published as they once did. And that all the future costs associated with an article are not even known at this point. Who would have known 50 years ago that there would be a cost to converting an article published then to PDF and XML? Who thought of ongoing costs for digital archiving incurred by the publisher? in the print world, libraries payed for the costs associated with archiving.

I am not aware of any publishers setting up a fund from current OA publication fees to support the future costs associated with those articles. Therefore, an issue to be aware of in thinking through the economics of author-pays OA is that new articles have to also cover the ongoing costs of upkeep and conversion of older articles. This is perhaps one reason why article publication fees are on the rise.

Why are you and I debating this, and not getting paid for it? Because we care, and because we’re human. When people care, they tend to do things intensely and without remuneration. In fact, studies have shown that remuneration actually inhibits activities when people care about something — pay spoils the vibe, creates cynicism, and quashes idealism. As I noted, a lot of PLoS and OA people pride themselves on their free labor contributions. Nothing wrong with that, but they’re making the same gesture as unpaid peer-reviewers for subscription-based society journals, whether they’re run by a for-profit publisher or by a society. As networking effort becomes easier, there’s every reason to think that more collaboration (without pay) will occur. The proliferation of OA editorial boards offers some evidence here. I just don’t think you can call one set of people dupes and another idealists when they’re both contributing to money-making operations. And, like it or not, PLoS and other OA publishers want to make enough money to sustain themselves and pay a little forward for investments. It’s clear in their communications about finances, and in the fact that they got seed money to start, raised prices when this ran out, and continue to pursue that elusive “break even” in their annual reports.

Marginal costs are extremely elusive in the networked world, as the model is really around manufacturing output. So, you’re right, we shouldn’t have even been using that term. Let’s shift to average cost, since this is clearly more relevant in the digital world — there is no “next production” of an article, only one production event, but that has to carry the fixed costs associated with it. So, thanks for moving me ahead here. I will now and forever recognize this trap of referring to the next digital copy via “marginal cost” as a red herring. We should always refer to these as “average cost.”

So, then, if the average cost of publication (or access) doesn’t approach zero — and, again, if it truly did, then PLoS would be rolling in money — then government offsets for research and so forth need to be recalculated to address average cost, not marginal cost. Again, that was a great point you made, and showed me just how misleading this whole “marginal cost” schtick has been.

Evidence is showing (and prices at OA journals reflect this) that OA is getting more expensive. Again, fixed costs are rising, so the average cost of articles is going to go up. There’s no way around this.

My final comment was not a joke. How do you reconcile a for-profit OA publisher with your world view?

Thanks for your clarification. You are correct, we were not communicating. I was looking at the total price paid for a paper in cost/download. So if a paper costs $10 to publish and is viewed 100 times, the cost/download is 10 cents. My calculations were back of the envelope ones assuming that 56 cents is a standard cost per download for a NPG article, and that the cost that PLoS charges authors covers their costs. (While UC does pay PLoS, from what I read on the PLoS web site, this payment results in less fees for authors, so it could be a wash.) Take my calculations as you will.

I’m not missing your point about altruism. You are mistaking cause & effect. You are assuming that x causes y based on the fact that x & y occur together; that is, that because people work hard on things without pay, therefore not paying people makes them work hard. This is a fallacy. I will look at some of the literature, but the relationship of motivation to pay & other things is a complex one, & in the past I have not been impressed with Shirky’s (I don’t know Dan Pink) approach to complicated questions.

Re. R&D, as far as I am concerned basic research is really what matters here. R&D for a new soap brand is not of any particular importance to society as a whole.

If you don’t think the marginal cost of a download approaches zero as the number of downloads increases, then you don’t understand the concept of marginal cost. http://www.google.com/search?q=marginal+cost

Sorry I was unclear about “free” and “freedom”. I was not rhethorically linking “free” and “freedom” but distinguishing “gratis” and “free” as the Free Software Foundation does.

I do think that if government & universities pay for the research, and most of the costs of publication via subscription fees, & the marginal cost of access approaches zero, then this research should be free to all.

I do not know if OA is cheaper or not, or if it is getting cheaper. The evidence seems to point that way, for those without blinders on, but frankly I don’t think it is that important.

I can only assume that your final comment is some sort of joke. Are you arguing that OA publishers might, possibly, become as bad as non-OA publishers?

I still don’t think we’re communicating. CDL pays PLoS a certain amount each year. This amount, divided by the number of downloads attributable to CDL’s “site license” is the cost/download for CDL. Aggregating across all of PLoS is not comparable. Being OA, this is especially true.

You’re missing my point about altruism. Read the literature tying altruism to motivation. Doing things without being paid (volunteering, doing something for the love of it, having a hobby, doing something because you think it matters) leads to more and better work than being paid. By this logic, authors paying to be published might work less hard, actually, come to think of it. Again, read the literature. The sources I mentioned are good places to start.

The evidence I’m referring to about OA being more expensive has been cited on this blog before, and can be found circumstantially in the increased fees PLoS and others have found they need to charge. And you didn’t respond to my point about for-profit OA publishers.

To your research statistics, the article you cite notes that basic research is 18% of all R&D, and that the federal government comes second to industry for the total R&D expenditure. So, I stand by my statement about the government funding “some” research.

Marginal costs are additional costs. Variable costs are typically contrasted with fixed costs. There have been long discussions in other comment threads on this blog explaining the importance and necessity of attributing fixed costs to ongoing operations in order to recoup them. Marginal activity (another download, another page view) has to absorb fixed costs and variable costs as part of it creating a marginal cost.

Rhetorically linking “free” and “freedom” is nice, but property rights and debt are two things that really made individuals free from tyranny (property rights by moving property to the individual, debt by aligning the interests of the powerful with those of the debtors). We, the taxpayers, pay for a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean they’re free to us. Corn? It’s subsidized by taxpayers. Tomatoes are subsidized in the EU — should they be free to EU citizens? Of course not. Getting them from farm to market is expensive, and that’s not subsidized. It’s the growing/farming that’s subsidized, not the shipping, merchandising, and so forth. Publishing is similar — the research may be subsidized, but the publishing isn’t. Even when it is, it isn’t subsidized sufficiently because maintaining, extending, and enhancing publications over decades is expensive.

If OA is destined to be cheaper, show me when in the last 10 years an OA publisher has reduced fees. I can’t think of an instance, and certainly these mysterious efficiencies would have started to show after a decade.

Unpaid interns are a good example, because although unpaid interns and academics are in different places in their lives, both perform unpaid labor in order to advance their careers.

Altruism, by the way, does not mean “unpaid”, though it could include things that are unpaid. (As an aside, shouldn’t the logical conclusion of your argument be that if authors have to pay to have their work published, they will work even harder?) You seem to think that altruism means that we work for free so that companies can profit. Well, count me out.

I guess by evidence that Open Access is more expensive than traditional publishing, you mean a study that says countries could save money with Open Access.

The marginal cost does approach zero. I am talking about marginal costs, not fixed costs, in the technical sense.

Govt funds “some” research? In 2006, the federal govt funded 59% of basic research in the US; universities funded 10%, and state & local govts funded 3.5%. Industry funded 17%. [1]

I am not saying that “information curation, dissemination, or promotion” is “free or cheap”. I am not even, necessarily, saying that OA is cheaper – although I think it will prove to be. The point is, we are 90% of the way to a world in which – at least in the US – we can provide free (as in price, and as in freedom) access to basic research for all our citizens, and indeed the whole world. We (as taxpayers and as universities) currently pay for most research, and we pay for the publishing of that information through subscriptions and site licenses. We pay – with perhaps a few exceptions – all the fixed costs. And since the marginal cost approaches zero, we can open this system up to everybody – US citizens & beyond – without additional costs. In a world in which we can do this, we have no right not to do this.

1. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsb0803/start.htm

Interns aren’t a good example because there’s a clear exchange — grades and low pay for work experience. High-level professional aren’t interns. They are seeking what everyone seeks who is intrinsically motivated — autonomy and competence. By serving as peer-reviewers, they have a way of pursuing their love of their field in a way that creates pathways toward increased autonomy and competence. They become smarter, have more insights, feel more in control, and gain intrinsic rewards. It’s the same with blogging here. I don’t get paid to do it, but here I am responding to your comment on a post I didn’t get paid to write. But I like to blog and do it probably more intensely than I would if I were paid. There’s a huge literature on this. Read Dan Pink’s “Drive” or Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus” to understand the studies showing that unpaid volunteer work done for the love of something and in search of autonomy and competence is often more intense and productive than paid work. In fact, paying can actually curtail the work’s amount and quality.

Universities have established the “publish or perish” culture we currently live in, defining what professors have to do to survive. They could just as easily change that to a “mow the lawn or perish” culture, and professors would be motivated to keep their lawns mowed. Would they be paying for lawn mowing? No, but they’d be incentivizing it. They’d be paying them the same, just for different work. Some universities emphasize teaching over publication, but pay the same.

PLoS has yet to prove that it’s cheaper. In fact, there’s evidence that it’s not. Many OA publishers are for-profit, by the way. Why would they not maximize profit over time, as well?

Your classic litany of online economics needs to be revised. Fixed costs are huge in online publishing, dwarfing those in print publishing. The marginal cost per download has to absorb ongoing SEO, hosting, upgrade, maintenance, email system, file system, backend, staff, administration, and editorial costs. Each download is encumbered with these, and because each file’s fate is uncertain, it’s hard to know how to spread those costs. Print created a system in which the publisher’s job ended largely when the issues went to press. Now, the publisher’s job is constant, and it’s like each is running a 24/7 press. So, the marginal cost per donwload IS NOT ZERO AND DOESN’T EVEN APPROACH IT. In fact, as technology becomes more complex and publishers have to support Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Droid, Facebook, Twitter, and other outputs, their costs are going up. And if downloads are what we can mainly monetize, then the cost/download is ACTUALLY GOING UP! PLoS is also finding that it’s more expensive to publish, I’ll bet. Their article-level metrics, back-end payment systems, archival systems, email hosting, ad systems, and all sorts of other things are adding to their cost basis. They have to reclaim these costs somewhere. Watch as over the years they become more expensive rather than less. It’s already happened, in fact.

It’s great that the government funds some research and gives universities some subsidies and tax breaks. But that doesn’t make information curation, dissemination, or promotion free or cheap. It just makes it easier for universities to run tenure systems and pay faculty and researchers. But given universities reliance on for-profit equities, I’d be interested to compare government contributions to university budgets compared to equity contributions and support from for-profit entities.

The point re. altruism is this. Take the example of unpaid interns. They are not doing the work out of altruism, they are doing it to advance their career. But that does not mean that we should not be concerned that companies create a situation in which people are expected to do free internships to advance their career.

Universities pay for researchers & professors to work. Part of this work is writing & editing publications for journals. Journals which generally do not pay. To me, this means universities pay for researchers & professors to do that work.

I’m not saying that universities should found journals, I am suggesting that they need to consider if the money is best spent on for-profit – or, sometimes, not for profit – journals, or on open-access journals. I think the data from PLoS show that it is more cost-effective. Furthermore, PLoS has the advantage of being free to everybody in the world.

My point about “who pays” is you cannot argue that people should pay for scientific knowledge based on the economics of Harry Potter. Whether users should pay for Harry Potter is different from whether they should pay for scientific (and academic, generally) knowledge for a number of reasons. 1) people have a right to that knowledge, as far as I am concerned, especially when the marginal cost of an additional download is basically zero; 3) the state, via grant funding agencies (NSF, NIH, etc.) and via public universities, and via tax exemptions for private universities, subsidized loans for students, etc. has already greatly funded (probably the majority) of the production of that knowledge, so that knowledge ought to be used for the benefit of all. Furthermore it seems that we can do this while spending less money that we currently are (if the PLoS example above holds true.)

Altruism is actually vital to the question. Numerous studies have shown that work diminishes — especially high-level, autonomous work — when people are paid for it. The altruism of the system may be vital to its sustainability. Universities don’t “pay authors/editors for the work they do for publishers,” if I’m understanding you. They pay academics to teach, do research, and attract grant funding. Work for publishers is tangential.

Many universities outsource catering and cafeteria services, then take a cut of the excess that’s generated by the for-profit companies. But that’s not a good analog. Universities are not equipped to conduct independent, third-party review of their faculty’s output. University politics would overwhelm objective assessment attempts. They aren’t paying for the content — they’re paying for the placement of that content in a more objective and removed merit system, as well as the services publishers provide directly to improve manuscripts. If universities can do it more cheaply and better, they should prove it. The fact is that most university presses struggle to create journals because of parochial pressures. Some are able to elevate, but only by becoming someone else’s third-party arbiter of quality and relevance. And they usually aren’t cheaper by the time they do so.

I don’t understand your point about not paying for scientific knowledge generated by state subsidy. How did that money get to the state? Through taxes. Who paid those taxes? Individuals and companies. Yet universities largely benefit from the grants for scientific research. So, should universities be free? After all, in addition to funds they receive from for-profit entities through their investments, they also receive plenty of state subsidies. If state subsidy means that nobody should pay for what’s subsidized, then universities should be free.