Open access: “Information wants to be free”? RICHARD POYNDER 2nd December 2020 Earlier this year I was invited to discuss with Georgia Institute of Technology librarian Fred Rascoe my eBook “Open access: Could defeat be snatched from the jaws of victory?” for Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll show he hosts.1 Prior to the interview, Rascoe sent me a list of questions. As we did not have time to discuss them all during the interview, I decided to publish my answers on my blog. With the greater space available I also took the opportunity to expatiate at considerable length in doing so. As can be seen, this turned into another eBook! Please note that what I say below is built on an interview. It is not intended to be any kind of prediction of the future; it is more an extended reflection after 20 years reporting on the OA movement, coupled with a heavy dose of speculation. Who knows, perhaps this will be the last thing I ever write on open access. Maybe this will prove my swan song. I would also like to stress up front that in the critique of the OA movement that follows I don’t claim that my knowledge, or predictions, are superior to anyone else’s. This is just what I have concluded after many years observing the movement and reflects my current view on where I think we are today. It does also include a lot of factual data, as well as links and footnotes for those who like them. Importantly, while I do not consider myself to be an OA advocate, I admit that I was as naïve as anyone else about what the movement might be able to achieve. Finally, while what I say might be slightly overweight in European developments, it may not matter if (as I believe is possible) events in Europe end up determining how open access develops globally. I say this because it seems possible that European OA initiatives will reconfigure the international scholarly communication system, and in ways that OA advocates will not be comfortable with. I would add that the main focus is on science publishing rather than HSS. In light of the uncertainty that has been created by the pandemic I have added a postscript to the end of the document. 1 I don’t generally give presentations or do live interviews, for two reasons. 1. I am pretty damned bad at live performances. 2. I have always self-presented as an independent journalist. Given the charged atmosphere in which OA is usually discussed it is easy to be co-opted by a stakeholder group when invited to attend events, which I feel could compromise my independence. 1 Open access: “Information wants to be free”? Below is a list of the main points I make in this document - Internet mantras like information wants to be free misled OA advocates about what is possible in an online world. Amongst other things, these mantras led to the mistaken belief that publishing would be very much cheaper on the internet. - BOAI was intended to achieve three things: to resolve the longstanding problems of affordability, accessibility, and equity that have long dogged scholarly communication. - It now seems unlikely that the affordability and equity problems will be resolved, which will impact disproportionately negatively on those in the Global South. And if the geopolitical situation worsens, solving the accessibility problem may also prove difficult. - OA advocates overestimated the wider research community’s likely interest in open access. This led them to lobby governments and funders to insist that they force open access on their peers. This was a mistake as it opened the door to OA being captured by neoliberalism. - The goals of the OA movement are out of sync with the current economic and political environment. This is not good news for scholarly communication, for library budgets or for OA. - Populism and nationalism pose a significant threat to open access. - The pandemic looks set to wreak havoc on budgets. This is likely to be bad news for OA. - Rather than being a democratic force for good, the internet created power laws and network effects that saw neoliberalism morph into neofeudalism and paved the way for the surveillance capitalism and data extractivism that the web giants have pioneered. These negative phenomena look likely to become a feature of scholarly communication too. - Today we see a mix of incompatible strategies being pursued by libraries, funders, and OA advocates – including unbundling, transformative agreements and the adoption of publishing platforms, as well as experiments with scholar-led and “collective action” initiatives. There appears to be no coherent overarching strategy. This could have perverse effects, which has in fact been an abiding feature of OA initiatives. - OA advocates have unrealistic expectations about diamond open access and the possibility of the research community “taking back ownership” of scholarly communication. - While publicly funded OA infrastructures would be highly desirable there currently seems to be little likelihood that governments will be willing to fund them, certainly at the necessary scale and with sufficient commitment. - OA advocates have probably overplayed their claim that publishers are engaged in price gouging. Nevertheless, the industry consolidation we have seen has led to a publishing oligopoly that now dominates scientific publishing in a troubling way. And as these companies develop ever larger and more sophisticated platforms and portals, we can expect to see more worrying implications than high costs emerge. Unfortunately, governments and competition authorities currently seem either not to understand the dangers or are unwilling to act. 2 Open access: “Information wants to be free”? Contents Pre-internet world .............................................................................................................................. 4 New chapter ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Open access ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Three tests ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Looking back ..................................................................................................................................... 14 More pessimistic ............................................................................................................................... 21 Bottom-up or top-down? .................................................................................................................. 23 Fracturing .......................................................................................................................................... 29 Open science ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Populism and academic freedom ..................................................................................................... 38 A question of trust ............................................................................................................................ 41 Plan S, transformative agreements................................................................................................... 46 Costs, costs, costs ............................................................................................................................. 49 Unbundling ........................................................................................................................................ 56 Strangely unscientific ........................................................................................................................ 64 The unexamined life: neoliberal capture .......................................................................................... 67 Co-opted ........................................................................................................................................... 75 Taking back control ........................................................................................................................... 82 OA Dilemma ...................................................................................................................................... 86 Sustainability: one of the worst weasel words? ............................................................................... 93 Platforms, portals, and discoverability ............................................................................................. 96 New iteration of an old model ........................................................................................................ 103 Preprints .......................................................................................................................................... 113 Information wants to be free? Should be free? Ought to be free? ................................................ 119 There is no alternative? .................................................................................................................. 126 Power laws and network effects ..................................................................................................... 129 Postscript ........................................................................................................................................ 139 The