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Comment by mlhpdx | Hacker News Reader

> MIT presented its principles to the publisher’s representatives as the basis for new contract negotiations.

This is an incredibly important and powerful strategy, as a customer or a vendor. When everything is negotiable, trouble follows. The instant gratification of a "win" doesn't help move an organization forward. Having and sticking to principles does, with practical benefits. Trust grows and culture improves. Consistency (in contracts, features, information, behavior) builds.

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The effect on experienced negotiators is different:

Portraying it as a principle, a policy ('our policy is ...'), an emotional issue, etc. are all just window dressings for what they want, and everyone tries to portray their wants to be as non-negotiable as possible in order to drive up the price they can demand. One basic tactic is to act angry about your want; some politicians love to do this one - it's a new outrage every day.

Well I also can act angry and say something or anything is non-negotiable, but the only question is, how much am I willing to give up in order to get that result. Acting angry, saying 'it's our policy' - I don't care about your internal policies; they aren't laws and you can change them at any time; they are your choices just like any other in a negotiation.

What the document is called in the end is secondary. The important point in my opinion is that MIT sat together and discussed and also wrote down what they want, how they want it and likely (as an outcome of their discussion) also have an understanding where there are areas to negotiate/compromise on are. Or in other words, they prepared themselves for the negotiations so they know when to be firm or angry.

Not quite - look at Brexit negotiations , EU had clear principles, which were obvious to anyone except brexiters, and the UK position was wish-washy

The university could make them binding and difficult to rollback if they wanted.

Then this is to misunderstand the customer. Administration in universities is a service to the teaching and research faculties (or departments, names vary). It's these faculties which bring in the money, which produce the results.

As a result, universities rarely make decisions like corporations, where the CEO decides and everyone in the organisation toes the line. A policy like this is made by consultation with stakeholders, extensive and ongoing. As the article describes, this takes years even in a small university like MIT.

It's simply not within the power of the negotiators to reach a decision outside that policy: they'd be ignored by the university faculties, who would then make their own individual arrangements, and the funds available to the negotiators would not be agreed to (and far worse outcomes are possible, efforts by 'the administration' to make decisions against consensus are a common reason for the head of a university to be sacked). If the negotiators genuinely can't reach agreement, then negotiations have to be suspended, the progress reported to many interested parties within the university, and then a new consensus reached about the negotiation parameters.

Now no two universities are the same, and the degree of centralisation varies. But I hope this helps you understand that the 'policy' referred to in this article was itself the result of years of negotiation, and "you can change them at any time; they are your choices" doesn't describe the situation.

Universities usually get 40-60% of any grant money by researchers as overhead fees. This is usually negotiable but it is not like you have much to barging against administration as individual researcher/group unless you are one of the top in your field or a nobel prize candidate.

On the face of it, this sounds like a modern-capitalism take that reduces to "People don't actually have principles, they only care about money".

Which is probably correct in 95% of modern business transactions. But surely a skilled negotiator should be able to tell when they're dealing with a party for whom this assumption does not hold. That's one of the main things that being a skilled negotiator is about; the ability to adapt to this particular counterparty in this particular negotiation, instead of adhering to blanket rules.

> modern-capitalism take that reduces to "People don't actually have principles, they only care about money"1

This is not a modern-capitalism take, maybe just a modern-capitalism phrasing. If you read "money" as common unit of value (which it is), not just dollars in hand specifically, then the statement is effectively true for 99%+ of people; the few for which it doesn't hold are considered insane[0], and we try to fix them or lock away in institutions, for the safety of everyone else[1].

There's no absolute value you won't compromise if the cost of keeping it is high enough, or equivalently, the benefit of breaking it is high enough. Having principles, integrity, is a way to boost the cost of some behaviors ahead of time, so you won't be tempted to engage in them even if presented with substantial rewards. It's particularly effective if other people know your stated principles and will hold you accountable. But it's still a finite threshold that can be overcome (especially with of companies, where principles generally are just pure marketing).

A skilled negotiator understands that everyone will sell out on their principles if the reward is big enough - but they also understand that it cuts both ways. Negotiation is a dance of allocating costs and benefits so that everyone actually gets something out of it[2]. It makes little sense otherwise.

[0] - Absolute principles are like probabilities 0 and 1 in probability theory - they break the math. Or zero in general whenever you want to do multiplication or division. You don't want absolute principles, or anything you do will be defined purely by them.

[1] - And/or stuck in cults as followers; notably cult leaders tend to be very much pragmatic and money-oriented.

[2] - Relative to the non-negotiated/fought outcome. "Your money or your life" sucks for the mugging victim either way, but the victim prefers being alive to being dead and the mugger prefers theft to theft + murder, so a negotiation is still worthwhile for both.

The carrot and the stick cannot increase indefinitely. It doesn't matter how much money you lose once it's more than everything you have, and it doesn't matter how much you gain if it's enough to get everything you want except for what you're trading away.

Money is a token for value, but it is not the only such token, and different kinds of power are not fully fungible.

The principle is the basis of the reward/value and the reward/value is the basis of the principle. They're so intertwined, they can't be separated. The fact that one can always conceive a theoretical "more valuable thing" is trivially true, but does not seem practically meaningful. The idea of a principle here is that the perceived value of sticking to it, or the perceived negative value of abandoning it, is so large that realistically the counterparty will not be able to offer anything that will surpass it.

The important part was sticking to them and not just using them as a feeble bargaining chip.

Negotiations always come down to strength of need and best alternatives.

It seems Elsevier overplayed their hand. They could have given in, but then everyone would demand the same.

They probably assume it'll take other unis years to be able to get rid of them, so it's better to keep milking them for now. Once enough leave, they'll change their tunes though (by which time it may be too late).

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