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> I don't think anyone disagrees that Nature provides a valuable service

Ooh, ooh! raises hand and waves franticly

Nature does jack shit that couldn't be (and in many cases isn't) done as well or better by the authors' personal or institutional websites.

What they "provide" is a brand name for wasteful status signalling, the same as Goochi purses or sportsball teams.

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If you have to pay royalties to use a digital font, it stands to reason you have to pay royalties to the keepers of information. Why that's elsevier et al all I don't know, but they are is the only logical conclusion.

Someone spent time and effort designing that font, and it's reasonable that they should be compensated for it. (Giving them the right to censor any use of the font so they can run a protection racket is a awful way of doing that, but that's not the point I was addressing.) Nature contributes nothing (today - they used to contibute printing presses) that couldn't be accomplished by publishing a first draft and soliciting reviews.

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