How much do they pay you for publishing an academic paper?
Nothing. Authors publish research papers for free; it’s part of our job.Oh, then the people reviewing your paper must earn a lot?
No, we review the work of our peers for free.Then perhaps the publisher bears high costs for language proofreading?
Not really. Authors are required to submit texts already proofread, preferably by a native speaker.Then why does your fifteen-page article behind a paywall cost nearly 40 euros?
Because I couldn’t get funding for the open-access fee this time. Look, anyone can read this other paper of mine for free, but my university had to pay over 3,000 euros for that.Wait a second—let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re doing publicly funded research, you publish it for free, other scientists review it for free, you cover the cost of foreign language editing, and then your university pays thousands of euros to some private company so they can make money off it?
Basically, yes.What kind of loser would agree to a system like that?
Recommended reading. This short dialogue neatly captures some of the oddities of the for-profit academic publishing system and leads into a thoughtful article on its structural problems, from public funding and access to knowledge to metrics and research quality. It wraps up with ten concrete proposals meant to spark discussion, both inside and outside academia.
Full text: https://utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/jsp-2025-0047