The one thing that's obvious to me now from these comments is that the angriest people have the least insight into what publishing is, why it exists, and why the system continues to work the way it does. Nobody ever explains in these comments to these angry people, so HN just becomes a machine that takes in ignorance and churns out outrage.
First off, just because a tax payer paid for research does not mean publishing should be free. That's like saying just because the government pays workers to use pencils, that pencils used by government workers should be free. The company is still doing work, whether it's for a taxpayer or not. It still needs compensation for the cost of doing business.
Secondly, commercial publishers perform a vital role, which is why they still exist. If they didn't serve a necessary role people would have stopped using them. This is obvious, because nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head saying you have to publish your research in X place. But nobody wants to think of why these commercial journals are necessary, because it might be the fault of single other than the publishers, so people intentionally stop thinking to avoid the realization.
The only name of a publisher that anyone here knows is Elsevier, which further demonstrates ignorance. They're not the biggest publisher, they're not the most expensive publisher, and they aren't the only organization that pursues legal challenges when their content is pirated. But since it's the only name anyone on here has ever heard, they treat them like The Great Satan. That image further polarizes and enforces ignorance of publishing.
Payment models vary widely depending on the circumstances and organizations (or individuals). Mostly publishers are trying to find sustainable models to pay for the jobs they perform, which includes hosting, indexing, referencing, editing, proofing, and facilitating peer review, as well as publishing the journals as a whole. If you don't want to pay for any of that, liked over said before, the whole research community would need to do those jobs for free. But even in OSS, companies pay OSS developers to work on code. So somebody has to pay for it. If you're so outraged at the profits of publishers, then get off your ass and build the replacement. But people just like to complain, not fix things.
I like where you are going with this. What would that business look like?
Would this be a new journal with a different way of making money or some kind of aggregator service?
Seems like an aggregator service would be the most appealing way to access the data for the end user.
I'd say these entrenched journals are being very cautious with an aggregator because the raw text data would be super valuable to companies, so they are probably going to try their hardest to limit usage of the data for individual access and bulk access. That's not to say an aggregator is not going to happen.
The problem is not access, it's the confusion around what journals are for. Researchers use journals for finding information and publishing information. But research institutions use journals as a hedge to avoid having to figure out what is "reputable research / researchers" and what is not. Those are two completely different use cases, so you need a solution to both.
The simplest solution would be to separate those solutions, so there's one system for vetting information and researchers, and one system for finding or publishing information. Those can be different businesses or community-led efforts.
There's also the aspect that publishing does not have to be inherent to access. One thing is finding who can publish; another is vetting their information; another is editing and layout; the final one is publishing. And then on top of that, is access. All of these are discrete steps which can be done independently of the other, by different organizations.
App stores are one example. There's not one company putting out a million apps. They set standards and do curation, but the apps are completely constructed by an outside party. The app store handles publishing and access, but the publishing aspect is mostly just hosting.
Another example is an Operating System. They don't restrict publishing or access, but they do provide a platform on which to do all the things needed to make or use data. Technically you only pay once for access to the platform, and other parties deal with the rest (which may involve payments).
First off, just because a tax payer paid for research does not mean publishing should be free. That's like saying just because the government pays workers to use pencils, that pencils used by government workers should be free. The company is still doing work, whether it's for a taxpayer or not. It still needs compensation for the cost of doing business.
Secondly, commercial publishers perform a vital role, which is why they still exist. If they didn't serve a necessary role people would have stopped using them. This is obvious, because nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head saying you have to publish your research in X place. But nobody wants to think of why these commercial journals are necessary, because it might be the fault of single other than the publishers, so people intentionally stop thinking to avoid the realization.
The only name of a publisher that anyone here knows is Elsevier, which further demonstrates ignorance. They're not the biggest publisher, they're not the most expensive publisher, and they aren't the only organization that pursues legal challenges when their content is pirated. But since it's the only name anyone on here has ever heard, they treat them like The Great Satan. That image further polarizes and enforces ignorance of publishing.
Payment models vary widely depending on the circumstances and organizations (or individuals). Mostly publishers are trying to find sustainable models to pay for the jobs they perform, which includes hosting, indexing, referencing, editing, proofing, and facilitating peer review, as well as publishing the journals as a whole. If you don't want to pay for any of that, liked over said before, the whole research community would need to do those jobs for free. But even in OSS, companies pay OSS developers to work on code. So somebody has to pay for it. If you're so outraged at the profits of publishers, then get off your ass and build the replacement. But people just like to complain, not fix things.