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I will start by saying that I have nothing against any individual or company making a profit out of goods, services or intellectual property they produce. However, I do not like the fact that publishing houses, such as Elsevier (just to name the largest one), make a profit out of the voluntary/non-retributed work of others. By this, I refer to the fact that the core product these journals are selling are scientific articles written by others, based on research funded by others, and with a quality control (peer review) carried out by others with no cost to them. Then, research and academic organizations pay these publishers large amounts of money in the form of subscription fees to gain access to content the community provides for free.

Because of this, I have decided to, whenever possible, I will try to avoid submitting my articles to for-profit publishing houses and will try to rely as much as I can on the journals published by scientific societies. In my field (physics, materials science, chemistry) this is not necessarily a problem, since the APS, AIP, IoP, ACS, RSC, etc. publish a number of reputable journals that can suit my needs. I understand that other authors might not have a choice, or might simply choose to also publish with for-profit houses. This might force me to publish at a venue not of my liking when I coauthor a paper with people interested in sending the collaborative work to such venues. This is not a huge problem for me.

The case of peer review is more complicated, because refusing to review papers sent to me by a for-profit house does not only hurt the publishing house, but also the authors that submitted the paper, who are precisely the community whose interests I am attempting to protect by taking my overall stance against publishing corporations.

By submitting my work only to specific journals I am not actively engaging in any action that could be considered offensive by the for-profit journals and their editors. However, by refusing to review their papers I am directly saying "no" to the editor who sent me the work. I would like to know how I would be hurting my career by "soft boycotting" for-profit journals in the cases a) not submitting there, b) not agreeing to review their papers and c) both.

Miguel
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    "Taking a stance" always has a price. Otherwise, it is a) meaningless b) no one else (but you) will notice. I do not think that anyone here can assure you how boycotting (including reviewing for) certain journals or publishers will impact your career. Probably it will do no harm, but who can tell? – Alexandros Jul 23 '16 at 18:20
  • I feel like this is a duplicate, but I'm on mobile and can't find it. – user0721090601 Jul 23 '16 at 19:13
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    @guifa http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51938/what-are-some-examples-of-negative-effects-on-a-career-for-boycotting-elsevier-j and http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52224/is-reviewing-papers-mandatory seem relevant – zibadawa timmy Jul 23 '16 at 19:24
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    If you don't publish in a journal you likely won't get asked to referee for it. Conferences may be a larger issue, since you don't choose were they publish. – Jon Custer Jul 23 '16 at 19:53
  • @JonCuster "If you don't publish in a journal you likely won't get asked to referee for it."

    If only!

     – Corvus Jul 24 '16 at 22:20
  • @zibadawatimmy Thanks, those answer my question almost exactly. – Miguel Jul 25 '16 at 14:37
  • @JonCuster Actually, the review request that motivated me to ask this came from a (reputable) journal where I have never published before. – Miguel Jul 25 '16 at 14:38

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