MIT has just ended negotiations with Elsevier on a new journals contract. Many institutions are doing that but MIT and the University of California, which also ended negotiations, are in the top tier of research institutions in the US and even the world. Elsevier can put on a happy face and predict dire consequences for those Universities but loosing MIT and UC has got to smart.
As far as dire consequences go, there’s been little evidence of them so far. Florida State University, for example, has seen dramatic decreases in their Library costs. The MIT statement doesn’t mention it, of course, but you can be pretty sure that their researchers will deal with the subscription cutoff by using Sci-Hub and Library Genesis instead. There are, to be sure, ethical issues with using pirate sites but most researchers are fed up with the journal publishers and won’t hesitate to use them if it’s the only way to get a paper.
I keep thinking that the publishers have got to fold and acknowledge that they have to replace their current lucrative business model but they keep doubling down. In the worst case, they won’t capitulate until academics refuse to publish in their journals and stop providing free labor. Of course, that also means that Universities would have to rethink their tenure rules, which won’t happen easily. Still, I don’t see how they can hold out much longer. Open access is a movement whose time has come.