alt Hacker News> […] the publisher posted a blank white page with the cryptic phrase, “This article has been withdrawn due to article violation.” Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95.
completely unsurprised, given the state of online papers publishing. if you don’t have an subscription or aren’t an organisation member, the fees are insane
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The fees to publish in journals for authors/labs are insane too.
I was going to post that snippet as well.
How much longer are scientists going to continue respecting and embracing the useless parasites that are journal publishers, with their right-out-in-the-open, obvious, intentional grifting. You don't need these jackasses.
What you rely on them for technically, the dissemination of papers, could be done with an $80/mo Kubernetes cluster and like three part-time volunteers.
Now in terms of what they provide for the peer-reviewing process... It's not like they pay reviewers. And most of that money is definitely not going to editors. It appears journal brands are only useful as signals of prestige, but with their ethics increasingly circling the drain, I'm not even sure that trust is well-placed.
Good thing sci-hub exists…
To be fair, the Springer empty PDF paper for $39.95, has zero errors, and zero plagiarism, so it is above the bar of their other paywalled proceedings papers.
The greed of scientific publishers is beyond parody at this point, these companies need to be destroyed.
Oh even if your org has a subscription, the fees are insane. You just don't see them.
Things are slowly changing but I can't wait for this parasitic business model to collapse for good.