The Toxicity of Taxonomy: Why We Must Stop Calling it 'Publishing' Altogether

The Great Categorization Myth

We have spent years coddled by the comforting analogy that open access (OA) and traditional subscription models are simply different delivery mechanisms for the same 'water' of knowledge. One gives you a pool to swim in, the other delivers a five gallon jug to your office. It is a charming image, but it is fundamentally dangerous. By treating these models as benign variations of a service, we have blinded ourselves to a parasitic mutation occurring in the shadows of the academy.

The current flood of submissions across every model isn't a sign of scientific health. In reality, it signals a massive carbon monoxide leak. We aren't producing more science because discovery is peaking. We are seeing more 'output' because we have totally separated the act of publishing from the act of actual communication.

The Rise of the 'Service' Parasite

If legacy journals sell prestige and Open Access operations sell distribution, a new, more cynical actor has dominated the world: the journal that sells mere visibility. To these predatory entities, the actual research is irrelevant. It is just the raw ore used to forge a line on a CV for a desperate academic.

As Kent Anderson noted in late 2011, traditional publishers and OA outlets may appear to serve different needs without direct competition, but this fragmentation has created a regulatory vacuum. When we stop viewing 'Publishing' as a singular, unified standard and start viewing it as a buffet of 'services,' we invite the charlatans to the table. If a funder wants 'speed' and a researcher wants 'visibility,' the predatory operator offers a grotesque acceleration of both, stripped of the friction of actual peer review.

This isn't a simple pivot in a business plan. It's an invasive species. The water they are peddling isn't just unrefined, it is toxic industrial waste.

Follow the Ego, Not Just the Money

We often fall into the 'Investigator' trap of following the money, blaming Article Processing Charges (APCs) for the rot. But the money is a symptom. The driver is the Anthropological Ritual of the publication count. We have created a system where a paper's value is measured by its birth certificate (the DOI) rather than its life (its impact or accuracy).

Predatory journals aren't just 'failure' cases. They are actually incredibly efficient factories of validation. They saw a world where the lines between traditional and OA models were blurring and realized that if we lower the bar for minor works, the very definition of a scholarly paper becomes a joke.

The Structural Collapse of the 'Two-Service' Logic

Predictions for 2012 and 2013 are clear: the wall between these two 'different businesses' will crumble, but not because they merge. It will crumble because the 'incremental' papers being pushed into OA outlets today will become the bulk of the 'status' papers tomorrow. Once we accept that a service is just a service, we lose the right to demand integrity.

To keep the record from rotting, we need to get radical. First, stop treating a journal appearance as a gold star. We must separate verification from the journals themselves and hand it to independent boards that don't get paid based on how many papers they greenlight. Second, group like COPE and NISO need to find some teeth. If a publisher lies about peer review, we should kill their digital identity. Call it a metadata death penalty.

If we continue to smile at the 'different business' model without calling out the counterfeiters using that same logic to justify their existence, we won't just be drinking dirty water. We will be drowning in it.