The arXiv 2016 budget is online: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;confluence.cornell.edu&#x2F;display&#x2F;culpublic&#x2F;arXiv+Sustainability+Initiative?preview=&#x2F;127116484&#x2F;329816057&#x2F;CY16arXivBudget.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;confluence.cornell.edu&#x2F;display&#x2F;culpublic&#x2F;arXiv+Susta...</a><p>They estimate spending just over a million dollars this year, funded via members (university libraries contributing a few thousand dollars each) and grants.<p>However, as I always point out, we must remember that the costs of a published journal are higher for reasons other than profit: journal articles are typically converted to HTML and XML via semi-automated processes with manual proofing and tweaking, production staff and some editors (for the biggest journals) are paid salaries, peer review involves chasing down deadline-abusing academics over weeks or months and building some kind of review tracking system, articles have to be reliably archived (e.g. lockss.org), and so on.<p>Then add that most journals are still printed and distributed by mail for some reason, and you have extra full-time staff and equipment.<p>I wouldn&#x27;t want to throw <i>all</i> of that away and just keep the arXiv. Ditching print makes sense, some things can be better automated (we need better tools than LaTeX or Word to prepare papers, so they can easily be produced in PDF, HTML, or semantic XML form), and some services are unnecessary (I&#x27;ve had journals copy-edit my articles and make no useful changes), but I don&#x27;t want to just read crappily-formatted base LaTeX from the arXiv with no frills either.<p>(Incidentally, PLOS is non-profit and still has to charge over $1000 per article in PLOS ONE, to pay for the professional staff and all the manual manuscript conversion gunk. Biologists love Word, so converting must be hell.)