[FairOpinion]

"No financial barrier to authors. As a nonprofit organization, PLoS will charge authors a fair price that reflects the actual cost of publication. However, the ability of authors to pay publication charges will never be a consideration in the decision whether to publish."

===

Looks to me that they won't charge people who can't afford to pay. They are a nonprofit organization, so perhaps they'll get donations to enable them to publish authors who can't afford to pay also.

[TopQuark]

Yes, all these journals say that. The price --- between $500 and $1,500 is, in fact designed to offset those that cannot pay. Still, where will this money come from?

It will discriminate between better established academics and those beginning their carrers. In addition, it will discrimnate against those in industry: the editors WILL press you to pay 'cause you are in teh commercial sector, so your company HAS money and SHOULD pay. Pure socialism, if you ask me: one might submit a paper, and should be able to do so, without the superiors' knowledge.

The point is, that there may be pros and cons to this, but the article and proponents do not address the cons. In fact, it's been my observation that this movement towards e-journals stems from the Leftist ideology: I've heard it stated that they want to cut out the publishers' profits ("What is the justification for charging the library $500/year for a subscription? None. Instead of feeding the fat cats we should be able to do it ourselves.)