Firstly I think the PeerJ guys are doing a great job (I interviewed their DevOps guy a while back, nice approach)
Secondly, the journals argue they provide editorial quality - and this is true. I doubt that nature will lose subscribers over this, its the minor journals that are in trouble.
But this is not the point - editorial quality is not what science publishing is about - scientific quality is the issue. Are the results repeatable and significant? Not is it a convincing read?
Every scientist wants to do good science, write papers that are works of convincing literary merit and get published in nature with a talking head on the ten o'clock news.
Only one of those should be publicaly funded, and free to read for everyone else in the world.
Secondly, the journals argue they provide editorial quality - and this is true. I doubt that nature will lose subscribers over this, its the minor journals that are in trouble.
But this is not the point - editorial quality is not what science publishing is about - scientific quality is the issue. Are the results repeatable and significant? Not is it a convincing read?
Every scientist wants to do good science, write papers that are works of convincing literary merit and get published in nature with a talking head on the ten o'clock news.
Only one of those should be publicaly funded, and free to read for everyone else in the world.