Hence, a significant percentage of the papers published in the European journals are of U.S. origin. Like all commercial companies, the managements of these publishers have a duty to their shareholders to grow their sales and increase their profits. They have long known, to their benefit, that journal pricing can be very inelastic. Libraries feel that they are a captive audience, and that they are obliged to pay the price the publishers ask for the journals that library patrons demand. So the vicious circle continues.
Libraries cancel subscriptions and rely on interlibrary loan or tearsheet services.
Publishers see their subscriber numbers fall, and to maintain or increase their revenues, they raise the subscription prices still higher. This effort already has a few startups under its belt. Rosenzweig founded the journal after the previous publication he edited was sold from one commercial publisher to another, with massive subscription-price increases imposed at each step. Of course, the reason that Rosenzweig can afford to publish his new journal at one-third of the price of the commercial journal he abandoned is not merely the rapacious pricing practices of his former publishers. It is difficult to imagine members of Reed-ier or Wolters Kluwer editorial staffs sitting at home with their spouses editing a journal over the Thanksgiving weekend.