3 billion profit on 9 billion revenue is an absolutely monstrous profit margin. Higher than banks (JPMorgan: 28%), tech (Apple: 27%, Alphabet: 21%, Meta: 20%), fossil fuels (chevron: 15%, exxon: 13%) fintech, weapons manufacturers (Lockheed martin: 10%), prescription drugs (Merck: 24%).

Its so profitable because they do so little and are able to extort from so many. They were only able to develop into these surveillance driven profit megaliths because academics unconditionally paid for the privilege of prestige with public funds. Anyone who participates in this system needs to reckon with their role in propping up the core informatics platform used in ICE's deportation machine, in the new generation of biomedical surveillance tech used to opaquely deny coverage, and in the plunder and privatization of what should be the shared, global attempt to understand our reality.

Its not just about the papers, though thats the easiest thing to solve by an immediate unconditional boycott: nothing of value would be lost. We've spawned an industry that now squeezes the life out of the rest of what our research touches, medicine, law, energy, and the rest. Have we no courage, have we no shame?
#RELX #Elsevier

@jonny
More and more of us have decided to do without these guys, and are trying to push in other directions:

https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/article/id/3363/
https://peercommunityin.org/
https://dafnee.isem-evolution.fr/

When people will realize our careers are not negatively affected (they're not), system will change.