The profit route in scholarly publishing: From journals as a business to journals focused on the business. The source of the publishing business: The business of scientific evaluation with bibliometric tools

This work aims to demonstrate that the scientific communication system as a whole, and particularly the publication of scientific journals, has mainly become business-driven, governed more by the laws of the publishing market than by the laws of science. Until not long ago, journals sprouted and flourished in response to the communicative needs of different areas of knowledge and their epistemic communities, without an explicit and intentional profit motive. Today, however, journals are born, grow, and die exclusively according to the business expectations of the publishing empires that market them. This paper details the laws governing scientific publication (epistemic development through the division of knowledge and the scientific communities that cultivate it, leading to its social institutionalization through journals) and contrasts them with the laws that govern the publishing market (creation of journals with a broad thematic spectrum, easy publication by softening article selection criteria, the creation of large "publishing resorts" with a wide and diversified offering of services that meet the needs of author-clients, and publishing conglomerates that engulf the entire communication system). The process that led from science-driven to business-driven publishing, and within this, from the business of journals to journals as a business, will be the subject of the first chapters. The Gordian knot that explains the transmutation of the essence of scientific publication is revealed: the shift from paying to read to paying to publish, which unleashes dynamics that lead scientific publishing into an increasingly business-driven activity. The paths to the publishing business are diverse. Each publisher has deployed the strategy that best suits its reputation as a corporate brand. Three routes of the publishing business are described: business through reputation (selling reputation by cloning journals), business through efficiency (selling easy and rapid publication at competitive prices), and business through deception (deceiving practices by predatory journals, or acquisition of regionally successful journals by unknown publishers). The current business-driven academic publishing environment is fueled by policies for evaluating scientific performance based on publication and citation metrics. On these foundations, another business is built: the bibliometric business. The demands of evaluation systems lead to an indiscriminate use of bibliometric indicators and the proliferation of journal rankings and university rankings that provide the fuel that powers the entire publishing business engine.