The commercial publishers saw their chance to enter the scientific journal market. Steadily they took market shares from the learned societies. Considerable price rises were introduced by the commercial publishers, partly due to a marked decrease in individual subscriptions and partly as a consequence of many publisher mergers, resulting in larger portfolios of titles and more market power. The return on equity for commercial publishers is often very high compared to most companies in other sectors and the largest publishers have margins far over the industry median. Several studies have shown a definite lack of correlation between price and quality.
Journals published by societies generally show higher impact for lower costs.
It is difficult to understand why prices differ widely, as many examples show that very good journals can be published for very reasonable prices. Researchers have finally began to realize that they have a responsibility for the current crisis in scientific communication and have started many alternative publishing projects with various kinds of financing. PLS appeals to publishers that journal issues over six months old should be freely available on the Internet, e.g. on PubMed Central or any such archives. The signatories declare that they will neither work as editors or referees for journals that cannot accept this policy nor will they subscribe or send manuscripts to them after September 1, 2001. The article also describes some successful initiatives from editors who in the face of their publishers' refusal to lower journal prices have left these journals and started new journals with other publishers, often university presses, for considerably lower prices.