Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: change in business model?

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has charged authors
nothing; costs are covered (and more, as the commercial publisher makes
a profit and also other RAS activities are subsidized) by subscriptions.

There is a rumour that this will change soon. Has anyone here heard
anything similar? If so, is there some sort of source one can check
with, as opposed to just another rumour report?

[[Mod. note -- A related note -- MNRAS has also discontinued their print
edition -- they now publish only an online edition. But their subscription
prices for libraries remain very high (> US$10K/year). See
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2020/06/14/monthly-notices-goes-online-only/
-- jt]]

[Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)]

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has charged authors
nothing; costs are covered (and more, as the commercial publisher makes
a profit and also other RAS activities are subsidized) by subscriptions.
There is a rumour that this will change soon. Has anyone here heard
anything similar? If so, is there some sort of source one can check
with, as opposed to just another rumour report?
[[Mod. note -- A related note -- MNRAS has also discontinued their print
edition

That makes the rumour---if true---to start charging authors even more
bizarre, since presumably going online-only is to cut costs.

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
-- they now publish only an online edition.

I think that there are still a few more paper issues to come, but the
writing is on the wall (or, now that physical libraries are being
decommissioned, floating around on the internet).

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
But their subscription
prices for libraries remain very high (> US$10K/year).

True, but one needs to compare them with other subscription-only
journals (of similar quality and overall size, of course) and not those
with lower subscription prices but which levy page charges as well (and
many have for a long time, even before the concept of open access or
even online journals existed, the latter tending to use the term
"article-processing fee", but I see no substantial difference from page
charges).

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
See
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2020/06/14/monthly-notices-goes-online=

-only/

Post by Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)
-- jt]]

Yes, that is the source of the rumour. :-|