Eduardo Aguado López and Arianna Becerril García, in a new LSE Impact post on Plan S:
From our perspective, Open Access is about scholars taking control of their own labour and future – not reforming the for-profit sector. Attempts to deliver “transparent pricing” and “transformative agreements” are indicative of the way in which Plan S has been largely shaped by the interests of corporate publishers and ultimately not those of the academic community, especially the academic community outside of the Global North. It’s discouraging to admit that the main critique of Plan S is accurate: That it is a Eurocentric proposal that aims to remove paywalls to achieve open access, but which does not seek to reduce the earnings and concentration of power over academic publishing enjoyed by a small number of commercial publishers. As such, Plan S resembles an accounting project, albeit a potentially transparent one: shifting funds from subscriptions towards article processing charges (APCs), whilst leaving the current communication system largely intact.
That’s Plan S in a nut—and the effort, while well-intentioned, really does threaten the Latin American model and the very prospect of a nonprofit, academy-led ecosystem.