We deviate a speech delivered by an icon of Scientology, Tom Cruise, to make it fit in the context of a meeting that a scientific publisher, Elsevier, holds with its journal editors.
To this end, we critic the scientific publishing industry where a few people exploit the humanistic beliefs of a community to the only purpose of enriching themselves privately. Scientology gurus take advantage of the social needs and humanistic efforts of a religious community, and publishers do the same with academic researchers’ desire to create and share scientific knowledge. In particular, publishers exploit the academic researchers’ work for the financial interest of a few investors under the cover of spreading scientific knowledge. Publishers do not remunerate the work of the authors of the scientific articles published in their journals, nor the work of peer reviewing carried out by voluntary researchers, while drawing substantial profit of this activity. For example in 2021, Elsevier’s scientific publishing arm reported a profit margin of 36% – higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon posted that year.