We academics pay for Impact Factor (IF). The problem here is that Elsevier is buying IF left, right and center, in a tactic very close (if not equal) to Microsoft Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. If there is a small publisher that has a nice IF built over the last 50 years, and charges $1,000 per paper, Elsevier would buy the entire business or magazine and hike the prices to $2,500 the next day. E.g. The Lancet, founded in 1823, was bought by Elsevier in 1991. Elsevier did nothing to get The Lancet to the top, it was already at the top. Of course, the other big publishers try do the same when they can, but Elsevier is the worst offender.
The problem we authors have is that nobody who has the knowledge has time to start a publishing business (and it's way less rewarding than science itself), and in the end we don't pay for publishing, but the grant (i.e. all of you) do. We authors are funneling money from the tax payer to publishers like Elsevier without asking questions, because all of our incentives are publish on the highest IF you could get, or leave academy. Also, in the hypothetical that somebody started a promising cheap journal, they would get an irresistible offer from Elsevier, Thompson, MDPI or Springer and that would be the end of it.
I've been in talks were people tells you "publish at whatever IF you want, if your research is good, people will notice". Yet, each and every time you apply to anything, they value the IF. If your paper has been cited by 7,000 Q1 papers, but was published in a Q4 journal, it worths much, much less than a paper published in Q1 journal cited by no one. The value of your paper is not made by association, but by a flawed metric that values mainly the journal.
But make no mistake: as an author I don't have to care how much a journal charges to publish, because I will get the money from you. All I care is the journal is a Q1. At Q1 level it's an oligopoly, they all charge about the same, and grants already includes the money to publish, so I don't need to compare prices. My monthly wage will be the same and my CV will get better. The publishers know this, and they prey on you... through me.
The problem we authors have is that nobody who has the knowledge has time to start a publishing business (and it's way less rewarding than science itself), and in the end we don't pay for publishing, but the grant (i.e. all of you) do. We authors are funneling money from the tax payer to publishers like Elsevier without asking questions, because all of our incentives are publish on the highest IF you could get, or leave academy. Also, in the hypothetical that somebody started a promising cheap journal, they would get an irresistible offer from Elsevier, Thompson, MDPI or Springer and that would be the end of it.
I've been in talks were people tells you "publish at whatever IF you want, if your research is good, people will notice". Yet, each and every time you apply to anything, they value the IF. If your paper has been cited by 7,000 Q1 papers, but was published in a Q4 journal, it worths much, much less than a paper published in Q1 journal cited by no one. The value of your paper is not made by association, but by a flawed metric that values mainly the journal.
But make no mistake: as an author I don't have to care how much a journal charges to publish, because I will get the money from you. All I care is the journal is a Q1. At Q1 level it's an oligopoly, they all charge about the same, and grants already includes the money to publish, so I don't need to compare prices. My monthly wage will be the same and my CV will get better. The publishers know this, and they prey on you... through me.