Before the advent of the Internet, it was difficult for scholars to distribute articles giving their research results.[1] Historically, publishers performed services including proofreading, typesetting, copyediting, printing, and worldwide distribution.[1] In modern times, all researchers became expected to give the publishers digital copies of their work which needed no further processing – in other words, the modern academic is expected to do, often for free, duties traditionally assigned to the publisher, and for which, traditionally, the publisher is paid in exchange.[1] For digital distribution, printing was unnecessary, copying was free, and worldwide distribution happens online instantly.[1] Internet technology, and with it the aforementioned significant decrease in overhead costs, enabled the four major scientific publishers – Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, and Informa — to cut their expenditures such that they could consistently generate gross margins on revenue of over 33%.[1]