[Lingtyp] Why would SIL charge money for Ethnologue; future of Ethnologue

[Sebastian Nordhoff]

regarding the discussion of the Ethnologue Paywall, a certain number of 
points:

- SIL's core business is spreading the gospel

- SIL appears to see a skewed relation between the costs of running 
Ethnologue and the benefit it derives from it.

- SIL's will to cross-subsidize academic research is clearly limited. I 
assume that the paywall is the result of an internal decision that the 
"academic branch" should contribute to the financing of infrastructure 
which is not related to the core business.

- In my view, the paywall will not net any profit for SIL. People will 
move to alternative products like Glottolog or even Wikipedia. The 
Ethnologue does not seem to have a Unique Selling Proposition anymore. 
The money which comes in via institutional transcriptions will be eaten 
up by transaction costs, bookkeeping, administration of the access 
rights etc.

- As a result, Ethnologue will continue to run at a loss for SIL.

- Eventually, SIL will have to decide for much longer they will want to 
spend money on a service/ an infrastructure which is not related to 
their core business and runs at a loss.

- academia, on the other hand, will have to decide how services or 
infrastructures it needs can be provided in the future without relying 
on the benevolence of a missionary organization.

Best wishes
Sebastian