Peter, I am sure you are accurately describing your own view, but
I must say I do not believe your remarks are representative of
publishers. Or if they are, people have been lying to me. OF
COURSE, publishers are trying to restrain the growth of other
journals. That is their job, to outfox the competition. To put
this another way, if they were not doing this, they would be
fired. You can't have it both ways; you can't send Jeff Skilling
and Ken Lay to jail (or worse) on one hand for abusing
shareholders and then turn around and say that the management of
a company should embrace a free, open, and diverse market, which
is not in the interest of their shareholders. As John D.
Rockefeller noted, companies wish to avoid "ruinous competition."
It is simply not true that "we all want more access to
information." An economic enterprise has narrow aims; if it
changes the world for the better, it is because it profits from
it. I love capitalism, but let's not get sentimental about it.
It is what it is: a vibrant, creative force that has a limited
view of the world. To get a complete view we need a pluralistic
environment.
And, yes, I agree that the less formal kinds of OA can not give
us the equivalent of the New England Journal of Medicine, nor
have I ever even hinted that I felt otherwise. OA is mostly a
distraction.
Joe Esposito