I respond to Steve Fuller’s claim that Open Access is no more than academic consumerism here:
There is a sense in which I’m suggesting that we should see the question of Open Access precisely as a question, rather than as something we should dismiss as merely a matter of economics. Something similar holds for altmetrics in my book. There’s a real question here that is not easily answered and that shouldn’t be reduced to technical issues. Similarly, the question of impact (both in terms of peer review of grant proposals and in terms of research assessment exercises like the REF) ought to remain open and not be reduced to mere administrative hoops. I see all of these as linked to the question of who ought to count as a peer — a question that resists any easy answer.
One last point: this is also, I take it, the thrust of Steve Fuller’s initial claim — that those discussing the issue of Open Access ought really to expand the discussion to include other issues connected to it. In other words, to treat Open Access as only about fairness is just as short-sighted as claiming that it is only about economics.