> Unlimited length and colour figures in an online journal? No shit.
You'd be surprised.
> The cost should be exactly $0, since all the actual work like reviewing articles is done by volunteers.
Peer reviewers are not the only ones working on PLOS, it has a pretty big editorial board[0] of 1300~1400 members and a pretty extensive editorial process. I do not claim to know if (let alone that) it is worth $1350/article, but they do apparently waive publication fees for authors who can't provide them, so the idea is that granted authors pay for insufficiently funded authors.
There are costs to a scientific journal, which have to be covered one way or an other. In an open-access journal, they clearly can't be covered by the one who accesses the information, so they have to be covered either by the one who publishes it (the author) or a third party (via grants).
> I'm sure that many universities and companies would be glad to provide free hosting for papers.
As far as I know PLOS editors are unpaid just like reviewers. People keep saying that there are costs to a scientific journal, but don't say what those costs are exactly. Sure, the costs are nonzero like hosting, but what costs more than say $1 per article?
You'd be surprised.
> The cost should be exactly $0, since all the actual work like reviewing articles is done by volunteers.
Peer reviewers are not the only ones working on PLOS, it has a pretty big editorial board[0] of 1300~1400 members and a pretty extensive editorial process. I do not claim to know if (let alone that) it is worth $1350/article, but they do apparently waive publication fees for authors who can't provide them, so the idea is that granted authors pay for insufficiently funded authors.
There are costs to a scientific journal, which have to be covered one way or an other. In an open-access journal, they clearly can't be covered by the one who accesses the information, so they have to be covered either by the one who publishes it (the author) or a third party (via grants).
> I'm sure that many universities and companies would be glad to provide free hosting for papers.
I'm not sure that's got any relevance.
[0] http://www.plosone.org/static/edboard.action#sectioneditors