I appreciate Science Magazine for stepping into the role of opinion leader and outspoken positions. I’m curious if this is related to the fact that Science is a non-profit journal ;)
They certainly aren’t shy of calling the publisher “Nature” a “for-profit company”. ;) (OK, at least not in this particular article.)
https://www.science.org/content/article/9500-nature-journals-will-now-make-your-paper-free-read
Not sure about this particular example, but I think there might be cultural differences afoot! Perhaps some of such emails are written by people who directly translate honorifics that don’t sound so outlandish in the original languages.
Sachiko Ishihara
Stanisław Krawczyk
Paweł Lenartowicz