Pros and cons of open access

Revisiting the Pros and Cons of Open Access

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Table of Contents

Introduction

For over two decades, “open access” has been a rallying cry, a reform movement, and a publishing model all rolled into one. Depending on your vantage point, it’s either the great equalizer of global knowledge or a Trojan horse quietly upending scholarly communication norms. Open access (OA) once promised to democratize research, liberate knowledge from commercial constraints, and empower readers worldwide. It still does—but not without caveats.

The write-up does not re-evaluate the open access debate from scratch. Instead, we revisit the pros and cons with the benefit of hindsight—and a touch more skepticism. Open access is no longer a utopian ideal on the fringes of academia. It’s now a central part of scholarly publishing infrastructure, making it ripe for re-evaluation.

This isn’t about taking sides. It’s about asking: What’s working? What’s broken? And what assumptions need updating?

The Original Vision: Still Noble, Still Relevant

The foundational promise of open access was disarmingly simple: make scholarly articles freely available to all readers, everywhere, without subscriptions or paywalls. It was a response to the locked-door policies of legacy publishers, and for many, it felt like a necessary revolution.

The benefits remain hard to deny. OA has expanded the reach of research far beyond academia. It enables educators, journalists, policymakers, and the general public to access peer-reviewed work at no cost. The benefits of immediate access to information are tangible and often urgent for disciplines that deal with public health, climate change, or technology.

Researchers benefit too. Studies have consistently found that open access articles receive more downloads and citations. Visibility, collaboration opportunities, and even altmetrics tend to rise. The spirit of OA—to remove financial and institutional barriers to knowledge—still holds considerable moral and practical weight.

But ideals are one thing. Implementation is another.

The New Paywall: When Free Reading Means Expensive Publishing

Revisiting the mechanics of OA today forces us to confront the economic trade-offs it introduced. The traditional model made readers (or their institutions) pay for access. The OA model often flips that burden to authors via article processing charges (APCs).

This pay-to-publish approach comes with baggage. For one, APCs can be exorbitant—$2,000 to $5,000 is not uncommon, with some prestigious journals charging even more. These fees are manageable for researchers backed by grants or institutions with generous OA budgets. But for early-career scholars, those at underfunded universities, or researchers in the Global South, they can be prohibitive.

The result? A system that may unintentionally gatekeep authors rather than readers. Open access was meant to level the playing field. Yet, in practice, it risks creating a new form of exclusivity—one that rewards funding over quality, and publication ability over intellectual merit.

Prestige, Peer Review, and the Race to Publish

Another angle worth revisiting is the relationship between OA and prestige. The academic world remains addicted to prestige journals and impact factors. Even as OA has grown, many of the most prestigious journals remain subscription-based, or offer “hybrid” options that blur the lines.

The publish-or-perish culture hasn’t changed, and neither has the pressure to publish in journals with high reputational capital. While open access journals have made enormous strides in visibility and respectability, the perception gap remains. Researchers still worry that publishing in OA journals could hurt their promotion chances, grant applications, or academic standing.

Open access hasn’t broken the prestige economy—it’s just found new ways to work within it. And the peer review process, while theoretically unaffected by OA, is showing strain. Reviewers are overloaded. Editorial standards vary. And in a system where volume brings revenue, selectivity often becomes a liability.

Predatory Journals: The Consequence No One Wanted

It would be dishonest to revisit OA without confronting its unintended accomplices: predatory journals. These bad actors exploit the pay-to-publish model, charging authors to appear in pseudo-academic publications with little or no peer review. They rely on deception, flattery, and desperation—and they’re thriving.

While predatory journals aren’t exclusive to OA, the open publishing model has inadvertently given them a profitable pathway. The low barrier to entry for starting a journal online, combined with the pressure to publish quickly, has created fertile ground for scams.

This taints the broader OA ecosystem. Many legitimate open access journals now have to work twice as hard to prove their credibility, while researchers must become amateur sleuths to vet where they’re submitting their work.

Institutional Mandates: Double-Edged Policies

Many universities and research funders now require that all published research be made open access, either via an OA journal (gold OA) or by archiving it in a repository (green OA). These mandates are often framed as progressive policy changes, and in some ways, they are.

But mandates can be clumsy. They’re inconsistently implemented, poorly understood, and occasionally at odds with academic freedom. Scholars sometimes feel boxed in—told where and how to publish, based on compliance rather than academic relevance or audience fit.

We need to revisit the intent behind these mandates. While well-meaning, they sometimes privilege form over substance. Open access should be about maximizing impact, not about ticking bureaucratic boxes.

Hybrid Journals and the ‘Double Dipping’ Dilemma

Hybrid journals—those that publish subscription-based content but offer an open access option for a fee—seem to offer the best of both worlds. In reality, they often deliver the worst of both: subscription fees remain in place, APCs get charged on top, and publishers enjoy a lucrative “double dip.”

This model has been heavily criticized, and rightly so. Institutions find themselves paying twice for the same content. Authors, especially those without APC funding, face difficult choices. Transparency around pricing and offsetting agreements remains murky.

Transformative agreements—contracts between publishers and institutions to shift from subscriptions to open access publishing—are a step in the right direction. But they’re complex, often opaque, and usually negotiated by institutions with substantial bargaining power. Smaller players? Left out, again.

Visibility Isn’t Guaranteed

Let’s revisit another frequently touted benefit of open access: increased visibility. Yes, OA articles are more likely to be downloaded and cited. But access alone doesn’t equal impact.

In today’s saturated digital environment, simply being free to read doesn’t ensure readership. Articles need to be discoverable—indexed in key databases, optimized for search engines, and promoted through networks. Many OA journals, especially those run by smaller organizations, lack the resources for this kind of infrastructure.

Without these support systems, open access can become open obscurity. The cost barrier might be gone, but the attention barrier remains.

The Emergence of Diamond OA: A Glimmer of Hope?

Not all open access models rely on APCs. The “diamond OA” model—where journals are free for both authors and readers—offers a refreshing alternative. Funded by institutions, consortia, or governments, these journals are often driven by mission rather than profit.

They’re growing slowly but steadily, but sustainability remains a challenge. Many operate on shoestring budgets, relying on volunteer labor and minimal technical support. Despite their potential, diamond OA journals struggle for recognition, citations, and long-term viability.

Still, they represent a path forward—one rooted in public good rather than market logic. Reinvesting in diamond OA may be the boldest way to realign open access with its founding ideals.

AI Joins the Party: Opportunity and Risk

Revisiting OA in 2025 also means accounting for AI’s growing role in academic publishing. AI tools now help researchers draft, edit, and format articles. They also assist in peer review, plagiarism checks, and even predicting which papers will get cited.

Sounds efficient? Sure. But also risky.

Low-bar OA journals are particularly vulnerable to AI-generated garbage. With the right tools, it’s disturbingly easy to generate convincing-but-empty manuscripts that pass editorial filters. Some OA journals have already published such articles, only to face public embarrassment and retractions.

AI can also influence discoverability. Papers optimized for machine readability might soon rank higher in search results, regardless of their intellectual quality. In the open access era, that raises a troubling question: Who are we really writing for—humans or algorithms? Not to mention, AI also gives rise to a proliferation of predatory journals.

The Global South: Still Playing Catch-Up

Revisiting OA means acknowledging those who have been left behind. For many researchers in the Global South, OA remains an aspiration rather than a reality.

APCs are simply unaffordable. Waiver programs exist but are inconsistent, hard to access, and sometimes come with hidden strings. Institutional repositories are often underdeveloped. Local journals struggle for survival, much less global visibility.

Ironically, the regions that could benefit most from OA face the greatest hurdles. Initiatives like SciELO (Latin America) and AJOL (Africa) have been inspiring exceptions, proving that regional infrastructure and public investment can work. But they remain exceptions, not yet the norm.

Equity in open access is not just about reader access. It’s also about author access, infrastructure, and recognition.

Reframing the OA Conversation

So, where does this leave us?

Open access is no longer a question of if, but how. Revisiting the pros and cons of OA means taking a more mature, more nuanced view. We’ve moved past the binary of “open good, closed bad.” OA can be liberating, but it can also be exclusionary. It can be a tool for democratization, but also a mechanism for exploitation.

The point isn’t to reject OA—it’s to improve it. That means developing equitable funding models, strengthening quality control, supporting under-resourced journals, reining in predatory actors, and designing policies that reflect both principles and practical realities.

We’re not starting from scratch. We’re building on progress. But building better.

Conclusion

Revisiting the pros and cons of open access means acknowledging both its victories and vulnerabilities. We’ve made undeniable strides in improving access to knowledge, yet we’ve also introduced new inequities, gatekeepers, and complications.

Open access is not a monolith. It’s a complex, evolving ecosystem shaped by money, policy, technology, and culture. And like any ecosystem, it needs care, recalibration, and active stewardship.

The conversation around OA shouldn’t be one of blind celebration or cynical dismissal. It should be critical, constructive, and constantly self-correcting. In the end, the goal remains the same: to make knowledge accessible, meaningful, and beneficial to as many people as possible—not just those who can afford to play the game.

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