Especially considering JSTOR is a non-profit that has to employ many people with similar occupations to those of HN. They digitize documents that wouldn't have otherwise been available at all before.
It's incredible how if they hadn't digitized the works, no one would be outraged. But when they ask for a fee to cover the costs of such things, everyone paints them as villains who try and lock information away from the masses.
Google has ridiculous amounts of capitol. They aren't digitizing printed works out of some sort of sense of social service. Street View is much the same way. They aren't doing it to be nice, and they aren't giving you access for free out of the goodness of their hearts.
Everything they do that isn't funded by ad revenue or working towards greater ad revenue is a speculative exploration into future markets that will one day be monetized, but is not currently by virtue of their tremendously deep pockets.
I've been wondering recently- I think companies like Google have started warping expectations beyond the realistic, and I'm both curious and apprehensive where that will take us.
The original argument was that JSTOR is doing the service of digitizing many papers that are out of copyright, but otherwise not available in electronic form. And if it wasn't for them charging access for this, then the work wouldn't be done. I was pointing out that Google is doing the same thing, and NOT charging for access where possible (i.e., the out-of-copyright works).
Google has several billions in free cash lying around to do stuff like this, and many billions more coming in from its various income sources.
JSTOR does not many billions in cash, nor any income sources other than access fees.
Ergo, JSTOR must continue to charge an access fee so that it can continue to perform its function of archiving articles and providing access to those articles.
It's incredible how if they hadn't digitized the works, no one would be outraged. But when they ask for a fee to cover the costs of such things, everyone paints them as villains who try and lock information away from the masses.