> The major cost of a journal is the peer review process, editing, and printing.
Nope, just printing.
Peer review is unpaid. In technical fields, at least, editing these days is done by the author (and/or whoever assists at the author's institution) and sometimes by peer reviewers. With LaTeX being standard, the author even does the great majority of the typesetting work. None of these people are funded by the journal. So you are certainly right about the time required; but the people who spend all this time never see that money.
Now forget the paper version and just put it all on the web, and we see that an academic journal can be run very cheaply indeed.
Nope, just printing.
Peer review is unpaid. In technical fields, at least, editing these days is done by the author (and/or whoever assists at the author's institution) and sometimes by peer reviewers. With LaTeX being standard, the author even does the great majority of the typesetting work. None of these people are funded by the journal. So you are certainly right about the time required; but the people who spend all this time never see that money.
Now forget the paper version and just put it all on the web, and we see that an academic journal can be run very cheaply indeed.