> The new journals will lack the prestige and career-boosting qualities of the established, old-guard journals.
True, just like Wikipedia lacks prestige and "credibility" now.
I'm willing to wait +/- 20 years until all those old folks die off or become irrelevant and today's late teens can't remember a world without Wikipedia and have never seen a printed encyclopedia.
But the academics can't "wait +/- 20 years" --- they have careers to build now. Grad students, post-docs, and junior faculty have to build a portfolio of work that will be impressive across many institutions where they might get tenure, or just their next gig. (Most would love to get promoted at MIT, but the odds are against that.)
If most of those institutions are looking at the same set of prestigious, closed journals, avoiding those journals is not an option for an ambitious academic --- and if MIT starts insisting they must, good talent will go elsewhere.
> True, just like Wikipedia lacks prestige and "credibility" now.
Note, I mentioned nothing about credibility or it's sarcastic variant "credibility". Though, saying you appeared in Wikipedia is hardly prestigious, and I like Wikipedia.
> I'm willing to wait +/- 20 years until all those old folks die off or become irrelevant and today's late teens can't remember a world without Wikipedia and have never seen a printed encyclopedia.
I should hope you'll need to wait a great deal longer than that! I hope for a day when I am so old even I can't remember a day without Wikipedia.
True, just like Wikipedia lacks prestige and "credibility" now.
I'm willing to wait +/- 20 years until all those old folks die off or become irrelevant and today's late teens can't remember a world without Wikipedia and have never seen a printed encyclopedia.