The Ferrari Model of Publishing
I couldn’t resist sharing a snippet from Tuesday’s discussion session at EAS 2025 about academic publishing in astrophysics. To paraphrase one member of the panel (whose identity it seems wise to omit), representing a conventional publisher), “just like with cars, it is possible to have a cheaper model of publishing, but who wants one of those when you can have a Ferrari?”
When it was my turn to comment, I replied that most astrophysics research is funded from the public purse, and that I don’t think we should be spending the taxpayer’s money on Ferraris.
In any case, the mere fact that something is more expensive does not necessarily make it better.
Scientific publishing should not be vanity publishing.
In the Dark 
June 27, 2025 at 8:12 am
Maybe an unintentionally apt analogy, since a Ferrari is useless for anything except as a status symbol?
June 27, 2025 at 8:55 am
I understand the “publicly funded research” argument but I find it unnecessary to make it exclusive. A private company with its own resources should not be “forced” to pay thousands of dollars or euros just to disseminate research outputs, either.