LAUSR

In January 2016, Optometry and Vision Science became an online-only journal accessible through the publisher's website: https://journals.lww.com/optvissci/pages/default.aspx. Since then, we have faced all the usual and expected challenges associated with digital publishing: mourning the loss of the familiar print version, exploring new models to support the business of publishing, and finding new ways to make the journal's content discoverable and easily accessible. The focus of this editorial is to share some recent developments at the intersection of academic publishing and federal policy that have the potential to further transform scholarly publishing by fundamentally disrupting current business models of academic publishing. Modern scientific publishing (and publishing content in any form) has been changed forever by the Internet. Some of the earliest and most simple changes created dual access to both print and electronic formats. However, the ability to track and measure website traffic, page views, and specific user interactionswas the genesis of newbusiness paradigms. When these content usagemeasures were combined with online advertising, all print media formats that traditionally relied on advertising revenues were fundamentally disrupted. Advertisers seeking measurable returns on their investments sought new ways to deliver their message to consumers that could be better targeted to a more specific audience, tracked in greater detail, and related more directly to business goals. Google and Facebook have established a dominant presence in this world of digital advertising, owning the largest shares (37 and 22%, respectively) of the $129.34 billion U.S. ad business market in 2019. It is pretty clear where the advertising dollars have gone, and it is also clear that this loss has been detrimental to some scientific publishers. Elsevier is the largest publisher of scientific journals, owning more than 2500 different titles that published almost 500,000 individual articles in 2015. To adapt to the changing business climate, Elsevier expanded their business lines to include analytics, education, media, and other forms of information retrieval and decision support. Elsevier, along with other leading scientific publishers (Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Sage), has continued to enjoy profit margins eclipsing Apple, Google, Netflix, and other leading businesses. If the loss of advertising revenues in academic publishing has not harmed the largest publishers, then who has lost and where is the disruption? Historically (20 years ago), most business models in academic publishing included revenue from subscriptions to institutions and individuals. Libraries, research institutions, private industries, and otherswould pay for access to content. In digital publishing, subscriptions no longer require the considerable infrastructure required for physical production and distribution. The subsidiary industries of markup, layout, boxing, and shipping have given way to software, programmers, servers, and paywalls. In 2009, the U.S. federal government began requiring that the published results of all research funded by federal research grants were made publicly available. PubMed Central was born and has become amajor public repository of scientific research results. Likewise,