Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees

["James J. O'Donnell" <jod@georgetown.edu>]

I have extracted a few points below from Mr. Hindawi's message, 
to seek clarification and make a comment.

1.  Clarification:  I am baffled by the repeated assertions here 
extracted and underlying the whole posting that publishers today 
live in an inefficient market in which "no one cares or does 
anything" about costs, and that a Gold OA market will become 
magically efficient.

Given that in this new market, at the urging of the Gold OA 
enthusiasts, authors will be *required* to purchase the services 
of publishers (by government or publishers' mandates), the 
natural expectation would be that publishers would be in the 
catbird seat and able to charge as much as the market would bear. 
If *that* force is not overwhelming, at any rate I do not see 
what force will transform the marketplace for the better.  Nor do 
I see, as a matter of cold fact, any evidence today of publishers 
who don't care about costs!

2.  Comment:  re the wonder of capitalism hymned by Mr. Hindawi 
in the eradication of less effective competitors.  That is an 
ideological assertion, where a moment's thought would suggest 
many cases where the iron law of the market destroys things that 
are of great value.  The not-for-profit sector (that's 
universities, research institutes, and many publishers) enjoys 
government protection in part precisely because the entities 
there are judged unlikely to flourish if subjected to the full 
power wonderful capitalist market.

One thing we *do* see in relatively free markets is that the most 
cost-effective enterprises are the huge multinationals that face 
the least restriction (let's say WalMart:  think of your own 
publishing equivalent) and the least cost-effective are the 
charming neighborhood shoppes with distinctive products and 
services.  I wonder if Mr. Hindawi looks forward to the 
eradication of many small publishers and the triumph of large 
international enterprises?

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 7:55 PM,
Ahmed Hindawi <ahmed.hindawi@hindawi.com> wrote:

> They both produce leading publications in their
> fields. How can they both survive? They can and do in today's
> inefficient market where no one cares or does anything about the
> cost.

<snip>

> In an efficient market, the more cost effective publishers will get
> more market share (which will lower the total cost) and will put
> huge pressure on less cost effective publishers to lower their
> cost (which will lower the total cost).
>

<snip>

> In a Gold OA world where price actually matters, more efficient
> publishers will have their day. They will wipe their less
> efficient competitors out of the market. And it is a wonderful
> thing for all of us, isn't it? It is what efficient markets bring
> to the society. It is capitalism at its best.