Orvium ICO — Everything that is Wrong with the Scientific Publishing Industry
Looking at the traditional stock market, we can easily skim through various papers such as this one and see that the average investor has at least a graduate or even post graduate academic education under his belt. These investors make up a whopping 93% of investors in the traditional market. Taking the average age distribution in the traditional markets into account¹ plus the fact that the crypto space probably attracts people with similar sociodemographic characteristics, I can safely assume that you, the reader, have already achieved or are currently in the process of acquiring your academic.
Doing so requires you to do some form of academic and scientific research. These research papers will later on be used in real world applications in businesses, research facilities or for further academic purposes. If you are currently in the process of acquiring a degree in the scientific sector, have you ever wondered where all those scientific papers land your professors or institutional workers write? Look no further because today we’ll dig deep.
Where Things Currently Go South
The publishing industry per se ranges from magazines and books to newspapers and directories. Most of them are private companies which operate in a certain field. Magazine publishers mostly focus either on the B2B or B2C sector, while textbooks make up for the biggest percentage of the revenue with technical, scientific and professional books. By digging a bit deeper in this section we’ll stumble across the scientific research industry. In this sector private entities run the space, creating a small empire ruled by five top publisher who account for nearly 70% of all publications. These publishers have created a system to finance their operations which generates such a huge profit margin that it puts those from Google, Amazon or Apple to shame. With a market estimation of $25 billion, the scientific, technical and medical publications created an industry that’s worth more than the annual GDP of Estonia.
The issue in this monopoly is not the monopoly per se, it’s more the way of how profits are being generated. Currently this field has created a three-way payment program: First, private publishers receive funding from governments which are interested in a certain topic that needs some scientific research done. Secondly, volunteer scientists (which are also paid by the government or the research institutes) review the work before it’s finalized before it’s SOLD BACK to the government institutions and universities. Besides the fact that these private entities are getting paid on three individual occasions for practically one piece of work (on the costs of the average citizen), the privatized research work will also be kept under wraps. This directly interferes with the bigger picture of science which is not to generate profits but more to evolve as a species and push forward scientific innovation.
In order to fight this rigged system, Orvium is planning to launch a platform like none before. Decentralized, transparent and with an end goal in mind that’s worth more than money. Check out the next article to read what Orvium has in mind and what additional problems will be solved by realizing their vision.
