Publishing as a trade is just barely above the protection racket level.
Well said. Is there anything that could be done?
]]>Should we be discussing how to deprive authors and publishers of possible sales?
The way that books at the graduate level and beyond are published is pretty rotten. They offer a laughably small amount of the profits to the authors as royalty payments. It seems like a holdover from the days before the internet. The only books I would ever consider buying are those from the mathematical societies (AMS, EMS, SMF, etc.) or university presses, since at least the money is going to a good cause. Well, I guess I've bought books from springer a few times, but only because it's Bourbaki.
]]>Should we be discussing how to deprive authors and publishers of possible sales?
Maybe publishers, because I don't think that authors of the maths books (budding) research mathematicians would be interested in stand to make a lot of money from their books.
But I think that this is not the point. I think that the question is not ultimately mathematical, and this is why in my opinion it is not appropriate to MO.
]]>Mathematics questions are completely different. As a mathematician, I know how to assess whether or not to believe another mathematician. I have lots of tools available to me and lots of ways to check any information that I receive here. So I can freely ask, knowing that I can assess the reliability of the answer. Indeed, unless I know before I ask how I will verify an answer then I should not ask it. This question does not fit that, and so - in my most humble opinion - it does not belong on MO.
That's my ultimate dividing line. As MO is for experts, the questions should be those that are answerable by those experts in the subject in which they have expertise, not in random snippets of knowledge that they might have picked up here or there.
(Incidentally, I see that I have failed to obey the protocol: I did not leave a comment on the original question linking to this discussion. I apologise for that omission.)
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