I’ve noticed this before, and brought it up with a couple of my professors a few years ago. They brushed it off, saying that the subscriptions are mainly bought by universities and other institutions, so nobody ends up paying an exorbitant cost. What I inferred, but they did not actually say, was that universities and similar institutions got much better deals on them, the way insurance companies get better deals from medical care providers by dealing in bulk and being in a better bargaining position.
They were both pretty civic minded individuals, but I suppose I was wrong to assign such a high likelihood that if there were serious gouging going on and the subscription prices weren’t commensurate with journals’ operating costs, they would have shared my concern rather than dismissing it because they didn’t personally have to care about it.
I’ve noticed this before, and brought it up with a couple of my professors a few years ago. They brushed it off, saying that the subscriptions are mainly bought by universities and other institutions, so nobody ends up paying an exorbitant cost. What I inferred, but they did not actually say, was that universities and similar institutions got much better deals on them, the way insurance companies get better deals from medical care providers by dealing in bulk and being in a better bargaining position.
They were both pretty civic minded individuals, but I suppose I was wrong to assign such a high likelihood that if there were serious gouging going on and the subscription prices weren’t commensurate with journals’ operating costs, they would have shared my concern rather than dismissing it because they didn’t personally have to care about it.