The answer to this question obviously should be "yes". "A 2005 Deutsche Bank report referred to it as a "bizarre" "triple-pay" system, in which "the state funds most research, pays the salaries of most of those checking the quality of research, and then buys most of the published product". I think this article reaches the same conclusion, but in a long roundabout way describing the history of the post-war academic publishing industry that made publishing in the 'right' paper key to recognition. As one researcher says, "Young people tell me all the time, 'If I don't publish in CNS [a common acronym for Cell/Nature/Science, the most prestigious journals in biology], I won't get a job," Once this happened, journals started making a lot of money, and the inevitable market consolidation happened. "Elsevier created a switch that fused Maxwell's thousands of tiny monopolies into one so large that, like a basic resource – say water, or power – it was impossible for universities to do without." Today journal publioshers operate in a world of almost "pure profit", subsidized mostly by taxpayers.
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