Neil Pakenham-Walsh writes
> I was intereseted to see this blog on Scholarly Kitchen:
> https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/05/14/apc-caps-and-bans-why-fun...
Scholarly kitchen is a thinly-veiled mouthpiece of the commercial publishing industry.
> Interesting blog but I'm not clear what is the #1 reason why APC
> capping would not work.
You can't be clear because it is just unclear.
Simple logic dictates that capping APCs will work to reduce them. And the industry is afraid of caps. So they come up with pseudo-arguments like listed in that blog post as to why it will not "work".
> What *are* the options for reducing the phenomenal APCs that some
> publishers charge?
Just don't pay. Everybody knows that scholarly publishing is a scam. The problem is not the publishing industry. They know they run a scam but it's legal and to some extend legitimate. The problem are libraries (and by extension the institutions that fund libraries) that fund that scam.
HIFA profile: Thomas Krichel is Founder of the Open Library Society, United States of America. Professional interests: See my homepage at http://openlib.org/home/krichel Email address: krichel AT openlib.org