Advocates of open access are quick to bemoan the ‘paywall’ that keeps people from reading research findings. The adoption of open-access publication does not eradicate the paywall, but instead moves the cost burden in front of researchers themselves. Open access has been around long enough for us to recognise that its cost cannot be borne by the external funding of individual research labs. There are also sincere academic-integrity concerns about scholars paying money to have their work published, especially as many open-access journals are run on a for-profit basis. In a sense, open access is - or can be - payola. The only source of integrity is the faith that the editors are acting honourably.
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