Depending on the field, articles typically cost $50k-$100k. £2k/$4k really isn't that big of an amount. I guarantee you that the pain of writing the paper in the first place is way more of a disincentive for academics to publish than a mere $4k charged to the grant. But they continue to crank out huge numbers of papers for the obvious reason: their jobs depend on it.
> APCs just murder the desire to publish at all.
Depending on the field, articles typically cost $50k-$100k. £2k/$4k really isn't that big of an amount. I guarantee you that the pain of writing the paper in the first place is way more of a disincentive for academics to publish than a mere $4k charged to the grant. But they continue to crank out huge numbers of papers for the obvious reason: their jobs depend on it.