Scholarly publishing revenue has conventionally come from library subscriptions paid for mainly by publicly funded institutions, and so is underwritten by the taxpayer. In my view, such institutions should also pay for their open-access publications. Recognizing who ultimately pays for scholarly publishing therefore raises ethical concerns (see Nature 623, 472–473; 2023).
The open-access business model requires authors to pay article-processing charges (APCs). This stimulates a keen interest in the variation in APCs, especially for authors expected to dip into their research grants. These frustrated colleagues frequently write to me, as editor-in-chief of a leading open-access journal, demanding that the publisher waive the APCs. I doubt they have ever demanded that publishers of subscription journals provide a free subscription.
But taxpayers underwrite scholarly publishing for publicly funded institutions, irrespective of the business model, and so the institutions — rather than individual researchers — should pay the APCs. And those institutions need to collaborate with publishers to produce a financially viable, ethical open-access scholarly publishing model. Lobbying your vice-chancellor or president, rather than complaining to journal editors, should facilitate the process.
